


Tri Alliance

by RosemaryBagels



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: England is BAMF, M/M, More characters to be added, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Thanos is a dick, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony Needs a Hug, and they are not nice, more pairings to be added, more serious side of Hetalia, there are fairies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosemaryBagels/pseuds/RosemaryBagels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a bad decision, Tony knew. Loki had killed many, including Phil Coulson, but he just seemed so destroyed. It wasn't as if there was anything he could do to hurt England anyways...</p>
<p>AKA the story of how Tony and Loki befriend the physical embodiment of Great Britain and then proceed to start a rather large war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It occurred to me that I have this story on FFN, and it makes more sense to post it here. So now it's both places.
> 
> This work if Beta'd by Mad As A Hatter 13

“I still don’t see why you’re sending me to Britain.”

“It’s a good business venue.”

“We aren’t making any money from this.”

“On the other hand, the publicity will be fabulous.”

“Oh. Publicity. Is that a thing we do now? Cause I’d thought we’d had enough with the whole Avengers thing.”

“Stark Industries is one of the leading companies in green energy; we need to be well represented.”

“Can’t you just send someone else?”

“You’ve been specifically requested.”

“Look Pep, I’m flattered by their interest, I really am, I just see no reason to spend two weeks on the other side of the ocean to go to a brainstorming workshop. Can’t I just do video chat?”

“Get on the plane, Tony.”

.

“You want me to what?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes I heard you; I just don’t understand the point. You want me to what?”

“I want you to keep an eye on Tony Stark.”

“Okay… lemme get this straight. You are having a covert meeting in Cardiff so you can have a meeting with the Italian mafia which you don’t want me to attend, but you want me nearby, so you are sending me to the clean energy conference three floors down, which Tony Stark just happens to be attending, and you want me to what… stalk him?”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why can’t I just sit around in my hotel room and read a book?”

“I would find it beneficial to have someone with eyes on Stark.”

“What do you think he’s going to do? Put on his Iron Man suit and attract loving fans, thus diverting the press away from your inflated ego?”

“He might be a spy.”

“Or he might just be a member of the not affiliated with anyone Avengers team, who happens to be attending an energy conference.”

“Just keep an eye on him.”

“Sir, I find that it extremely disrespectful to Mr. Stark that he wants to enter our country and attend an event that he was invited to and all you want to do is put a tail on him.”

“Kirkland! I’m not asking you again.”

“Fine, sir. Whatever you say.”

.

The accommodations were mediocre at best. Tony could tell that whoever organised this thing hadn’t actually expected him to show up. Which was alright. It wasn’t like he really wanted to spend much time in the room anyways.

Still, the workshop didn’t start till ten the next morning, which meant that Tony had a full eighteen hours to do nothing before this thing really began. Great.

After he checked his email (spam, spam, potential investor for SI, reminder from Pepper), answering Clint’s question on where to find the window cleaner (closet by the elevator on floor three said Jarvis), and considering texting Pepper (but time zones, and was Cardiff ahead or behind? Better to just not bother), Tony was really bored.

Fury had, quite recently, insisted that all the Avengers, except possibly Thor, live in the same place to make it easier to contact them. And since Tony happened to have a rather huge tower in the middle of New York, his place was volunteered.

And it was great. It was really great. Most of the time. But Tony hadn’t really ever done the “having friends” thing, and he was constantly afraid that he would mess up and loose what little connection he had. So he spent most of his time in his lab, because if he wasn’t around to say things then he couldn’t mess anything up, but that wasn’t ideal.

Because ignoring the Avengers in his own home also equated to ignoring Pepper, which was not something Tony wanted to do, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Natasha had caught on to him.

It was just that, they were friends. But not friends that went away if you fucked things up, they were also a team and they worked together, meaning that if Tony screwed this up… he’d have a lot of people to deal with. Living in his house.

He couldn’t run.

Tony ran a hand through his hair in frustration and looked at the clock proudly proclaiming that it was thirty minutes past midnight. Ah, fuck what time it was, Tony wasn’t spending another minute in the tiny room.

His feet took him down the dimly lit corridor, up a short flight of stairs, around a corner and into the room where the Energy Conference was to be held the next day.

The room was dark by the entrance, but a second bank of lights by the far wall had been fully lit, which allowed for a decent view of the three sleek round tables and chairs.

There was a single man, sitting at the far table with a newspaper over his face. Tony would have thought him asleep, if not for the fact that the man in question then put his feet up on the table. Seeing nothing better to do than say hello, Tony wandered over and took a seat about two down the table from him.

“You here for the Energy Conference?” The man’s voice had a sharp English accent, but he seemed utterly bored.

“Yeah, I guess.” There was an odd pause. “You?”

“Fucked if I know,” the man groaned, “My boss said to be here, so here I am.”

“Your boss do that often?”

“Yes. No. Sometimes. He’s a git. I try to avoid him as much as possible.”

Tony let out a little breath of laughter, and the man pulled down his newspaper to give him an odd look. He looked to be in his early thirties with dusty blonde hair, and enormous eyebrows.

“I take it your boss is not-a-git then?” The British man asked.

“Oh hell no.” Even though Fury wasn’t really his boss, there was no denying that he was definitely a git. Whatever that meant.

“Did he convince you to come to the ‘brainstorming the new clean energy ideas of the future’ thing?” The man asked, quoting one of the write-ups on the Energy thingy.

“What, you mean people with over inflated egos yelling at each other about the best way to conserve fuel?” The other man looked as if he were trying not to laugh. “Nah that was my ex.” The blonde looked incredulous, and then began to laugh. And Tony laughed with him, because the entire situation was weird and funny, and the sound of laughter just seemed to chase all the awkwardness out of the room.

“I’m Arthur Kirkland.” The British man offered a hand.

“Tony Stark.” The handshake was firm, and Arthur’s hands were dry and smooth.

“Well, Mr. Stark. Welcome to Britain.”

“Call me Tony.”

.

“And I’d like to thank you all for appearing at the World of Change Energy Conference today.”

Tony was bored. Actually that was what he’d been two hours ago. By now he was long past the bored out of his mind stage and was heading into the ‘if I had a gun I’d shoot myself in the foot just to give me something to do’ phase.

There had been three hours of opening speeches. Three hours. Mostly because there was a problem with the projector, and despite the fact that Tony or many other numerous people around the room could easily have fixed it, the man who’d made the damn project was determined that he’d be the one to figure it out. After watching him struggle for twenty minutes, one of the other guys, Tony did not bother to learn his name, stood up to say the opening words, except was stalling and rambled for another thirty minutes.

Then they watched the power point which was long and pointless, then this scientist who got invited wanted to say a few words of thanks, then a man wearing a sharp suit made another speech to actually open the conference, which stalled in the middle so he could have a twenty minute conversation on the phone with his wife. After three hours they were finally getting down to the first order of business: the name game.

Arthur again sat with a newspaper over his face, only this time Tony was pretty sure he was actually asleep. Tony himself had doodled through the margins of the information package provided, which was now covered in diagrams of possible engine parts, upgrades to his suit, rude drawings of the people at the table around him, and an immense stick figure battle that had sprawled across the entirety of page five.

He’d texted everyone he could think of and had no response from either Pepper or Happy, a sharp “I’m working” from Rhodey, a “Why are you texting me? Do you need something?” from Steve, and “That bored, huh?” from Bruce.

Currently he’d made it his mission to google every person in the room, and had just about succeeded, except for himself, Arthur, and the two unnamed guys in the back discussing the cable malfunction that had caused the delay in the first place. And he’d already googled himself on several occasions so…

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang and some muffled screams, followed by the sounds of quickly moving footsteps from down the hall. The board room was suddenly silent except for Arthur bolting upright, and then a blaring alarm was set off.

.

In the moment before chaos, Arthur observed, time appeared frozen. Just as the alarm sounded, it was if the entire room froze, waiting for someone to have a reaction that would become the consensus of a panicked response from everyone in the room.

That reaction came from a bald man with a beige tie bolting from the room.

As the frozen time broke, Arthur received three texts in quick succession from the Prime Minister.

**Bomb threat.**

**Am clear of building.**

**Keep eyes on Stark.**

Brilliant. Not only was he completely cut off from the politics he was supposed to be involved with, but he was a billionaire’s babysitter too. Not that he particularly minded handing out with Stark. He was better than a lot of people, like France. Even for a playboy, he was better than France.

It was the principal of the thing! He was the bloody United Kingdom, and despite the fact that he did technically have to follow his boss’s orders, the man could at least be a little kinder to him. Most of the time Arthur was treated like the dirt he walked on.

He pocketed his phone to realise that he and Stark were the only people left in the room. It took him a moment to realise that, like himself, Stark had seen the battlefield and his response to a panicked situation was not to run, but look for an enemy. Stark stood, perfectly still with his eyes closed, as if trying to determine if there were hostile sounds echoing through the building.

“What are you doing standing around?” A uniformed police officer ran into a room. “It’s a bloody evacuation! Get out!” The over enthusiastic woman forced the two of them out the door and into the stairwell and yelled, “Go!” before running back into the hallway to check if anyone else hadn’t evacuated.

“So, what’s going on?” Tony asked.

“There was a bomb threat.”

“What?”

“The Prime Minister was having a meeting upstairs. I’m assuming he was the target.”

“Is there actually a bomb, because I’m pretty good a defusing those things.” As if the mafia would let a bomb anywhere near their leader.

“Probably not. But we should still exit the premises.” There was a moment of silence as the two of them wandered out of the building.

They stood for a moment and watched as the organised force emptied the building, secured the perimeter and calmed numerous people in hysterics.

“Huh. They actually seem to know what they are doing,” Tony commented. “I guess I’m really not needed.” Arthur allowed a look of amusement to creep onto his face. Even if he didn’t know it, Tony was sort of like America, he thought he was the centre of the universe.

“We should leave before the place is swarming with paparazzi. Want to go find a pub?”

.

Tony, who still couldn’t quite grasp that there were police forces that were actually competent and good at their jobs, was in fact quite happy to follow his new friend in the quest for alcohol. Or at least, he thought Arthur was a friend. The man was exceptionally hard to read.

Still, he was sarcastic and funny, and Tony really had nothing better to do.

“So, do you live in Cardiff?” he questioned.

“No. I live in London, usually.”

“Usually?”

“My job forces me to move around a lot.” Arthur turned a corner and pointed up the street. “That’s where we’re heading.” Had Tony stumbled across it on his own, he would have thought it a hole in the wall establishment, and probably wouldn’t have gone in. But inside was cool and smelled of dark wood, rich ale, and the place was entirely deserted.

The man that wandered from the back had frizzy brown hair, a hard face but kind eyes. Arthur ordered a pint of his finest dark, and then shot Tony a questioning look. Tony just shrugged.

“I’ll have what he’s having.”

The man smiled, and filled two glasses with the frothy brown liquid, and Arthur tossed him some incomprehensible amount of money in pounds, which Tony suddenly realised he had none of.

Arthur led them to a table in a dimly lit corner, and the man vanished again, leaving the two of them blessedly alone.

“What’s it like?” Tony said, picking up the conversation that had been abandoned outside the establishment.

“Huh?”

“What’s it like having a job that forces you to move around all the time.” Arthur stared down at his beer. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Tony tacked on.

“It’s,” Arthur hesitated, “both good and bad. It’s really good because you get to go everywhere and see so many things that you wouldn’t think of otherwise. But it makes it really hard to stay connected to people.” Tony nodded, taking a sip of the liquid which was slightly bitter, but achingly rich.

“So you don’t have any family waiting for you, home in London?” Arthur’s eyebrows furrowed, and Tony suddenly realised that the man in front of him looked a lot older than he first appeared to be.

“I can’t even remember the last time there was someone I would willingly call family.” Tony suddenly felt like an intruder. As if he shouldn’t be there to see the revealed secrets of this man whose eyes reflected a soul much darker than it had first appeared to be.

“Still,” Arthur sighed, “I wouldn’t trade my position to anyone else in the world.”

“So, you like it?” Tony whispered.

“I don’t think anyone else is competent enough to do it.” Tony snorted.

“Tell me about it.”

“So, what’s it like being a super hero?” Arthur asked.

“Different.” Tony responded, and decided to reward Arthur’s surprising honesty with a bit of his own. “And much like you said. It feels really powerful being out there and helping people. Like I could actually make a difference. But everyone just gets excited about the mask, and seems to forget about the man inside. But it’s not something I would pass off to someone else, and I’ve never really had that many friends so...”

“Me neither,” Arthur said. Tony looked up to meet his eyes, and was surprised when the blonde offered him a weak smile.

“I just…” Tony froze. Did he really want to share this information? Then again why not, the man was a British man that Tony would probably never see again. “It’s really hard for me to connect with people. Sometimes I just wish it was easier.”

“So do I,” Arthur’s voice was no more than a whisper. He slowly reached across the table until his fingers brushed Tony’s. “So do I.”

.

They stumbled from the pub when it was dusk, and watched as the sun sunk beneath the line of buildings. Tony was amused and also slightly in awe when Arthur used his seemingly magical ability at finding things to locate a local and cheep hotel with available rooms.

Tony’s room was a floor above Arthur’s, and even though he should really head up the stairs and go to sleep, he somehow couldn’t force himself to move away from Arthur’s door. The man himself seemed reluctant to lose Tony’s company, and after a moment of hesitation, he seemed to make a decision and stepped forwards. Sure he might have moved much closer into Tony’s personal space than he would normally allow, but with the feint smell of alcohol on his breath and eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, Tony found he really didn’t mind.

Not only did he not mind, but he almost wanted to be closer to this burning enigma that was so like him and yet to different, fire that was reflected in Arthur’s own eyes.

Tony wasn’t exactly sure who started the kiss, but he knew that it was hot and somehow seemed like he had found a missing part of himself, and by the end of it he was sweaty, needy, and desperate to hold on to this piece forever.

“You talked about connecting,” Arthur whispered against his mouth. “Could you show me?”

The rest of the night was lost in passion.

.

Tony woke with a start to the sound of his phone beeping incessantly. This wouldn’t have been that much of a problem, except for the fact that he was really comfortable, and didn’t want to move.

Every muscle in his body felt like it was sore, but the good kind of sore that only served as a reminder of the absolutely fantastic night he’d just had.

The ball of warmth that was Arthur had curled into his side, his head on Tony’s arm and hand next to the arc reactor. Tony was almost too hot, but he had absolutely no intention of moving.

“You should probably get that,” Arthur muttered, without opening his eyes.

“Yeah, but that involves getting up.” Tony responded.

“As tempting an idea as just lying here is people your side of the pond have probably found out about the not bombing by now.” This meant Pepper and Fury hounding on his ass for not checking in immediately after the event. Great.

“I kinda need my arm then.” Arthur gave a resounded sigh and slowly sat up. Tony rolled over and managed to grab his pants from the floor without getting out of bed, and fished his phone out from the pocket.

**26 messages**

**12 missed calls**

**8 voicemails**

Well shit. Someone obviously wanted to get a hold of him, then. He ignored the missed calls, and focussed on the texts, most of which were from Pepper asking where he was, what had happened and if he was okay. There was also a concerned message from Bruce, an annoyed message from Clint, several increasingly worried messages from Steve and an informative message from Natasha telling him that there was a situation at Shield that Fury wanted him to be a part of. And then Pepper telling him that there was a jet waiting for him. Damn it.

Tony flumped backwards onto his pillow, tracing the intricate designs made with stucco on the ceiling.

“What’s going on?” Arthur whispered.

“Something came up at super hero base. They want me on a plane,” Tony checked the time, “twenty minutes ago.” Arthur groaned, lying back on his pillow as well.

“I guess you should get going then.”

“I guess.” And yet, Tony was reluctant. Tony was reluctant because, if he left now, this night would be nothing more than one of his one night stands, in which case he’d never see Arthur again. But that wasn’t what this was. Last night had meant more to Tony than that, and he longed to somehow prove it to Arthur.

Another panicked and furious text arrived from Pepper, and Tony realised he would be in serious shit if he didn’t head out soon.

He rolled from the bed, quickly separating his clothes from Arthur’s and pulling them on. He grabbed a notepad and pen from the nearby table, jotting down his personal cell phone number.

“I’m sorry, I really have to go,” He said to Arthur, feeling a tinge of regret as Arthur’s sorrowed eyes met his own, “but please. Call me.” He pressed the paper into Arthur’s hand and watched as a small spark of hope burst into the man’s eyes, before he turned and exited the room.

And with resignation settling hard over his heart, Tony left the hotel.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Ivan.”

“Arthur: friend. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Arthur’s weary voice echoed through the phone lines. “Sorry for calling so late I just…” Ivan glanced over at the clock. His friend knew he would be up at midnight anyways, he didn’t know why the Englishman insisted on apologising every time he called at an impossibly inconvenient hour. Ivan was happy to talk, even at an inconvenient hour.

“So, what’s up with you?” Arthur’s voice echoed through the phone. Ivan usually would have insisted he cut the small talk, but Arthur had been having some particularly difficult struggles of late.

“Oh nothing much. My sisters came over for dinner yesterday.” It had been an awkward affair. There air had been filled with fragmented silences and half spoken phrases around the table which had once belonged to them as a family, but now just belonged to Ivan alone. Even when the room was filled with laughter, it still didn’t feel like the home it used to be.

“I trust they are doing well?” Ivan had to smile at his friends manners before he answered.

“There has been some problematic weather in Belarus, but other than that they are going just fine.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“So tell me, friend. What is on your mind?” The phone was filled with static, as Arthur nearly groaned. Ivan felt a pang of concern for the man. He didn’t deserve half the shit his boss put him through.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Arthur,” Ivan allowed a touch of sharpness to creep into his tone, “Tell me what happened.” There was silence for a moment. Ivan waited patiently as he listened to Arthur semi-laboured breathing.

“It’s my boss,” Arthur finally whispered. “You know the drill.” Ivan did know the drill. Arthur’s boss, though pleasant when sober, was an absolute dragon when drunk. Since countries had no real legal status, and didn’t even exist to the people who didn’t need to know about them, many bosses felt it within their power to abuse their nation, physically, emotionally or sexually. Arthur hadn’t been sexually abused to the best of Ivan’s knowledge (and if he had, he was getting a pipe through his head no matter what Arthur had to say on the subject), but he’d been known to beat Arthur on several occasions.

“Are you injured?” There was a small grunt.

“Not really, I don’t think. He nailed me hard in the ribs, but I don’t think it’s too serious.”

“If the pain hasn’t dulled by this time tomorrow, you should get it checked out.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Arthur…”

“What?”

“Don’t make me come over there…” Arthur laughed dryly.

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Da!” Ivan responded his voice cheery again. Arthur got used to his mood swings long ago.

“What do you want to know?”

“Why was he mad at you this time?”

“I… I met someone.”

“Someone.”

“Tony Stark.”

“Ahh, one of Alfred’s wonder-birds. Well, did the expectation hold up to reality?”

“Well he’s completely full of himself, that’s for sure.”

“And…”

“And what?”

“If you didn’t like him, you would have insulted him at least six times by now. So tell me what he’s like.”

“You sound like a teenage girl.”

“And you sound like a high-schooler with a crush. Tell me what he’s like.”

“Fine. He is sort of an asshole, but he’s sarcastic, and witty, and funny, and actually really relatable, and devilishly handsome…”

“And ridiculously good in bed?” Ivan asked in the silence. Arthur sputtered into the phone, and Ivan burst out laughing, imagining his friends face to be bright red.

“Maybe…” he muttered after a while.

“So your boss is trying to be a cock blocker as well as a prick, then?”

“Nah. He has the mistaken impression that somehow Tony’s presence in Cardiff will topple the government.”

“He’s delusional.”

“And an utter prick.”

“I dare you to say that to his face.” The ridiculous statement was rewarded with Arthur’s laughter.

“Yeah right,” Arthur said.

“Will you be seeing him again?” Ivan asked. Arthur seemed to hesitate.

“I don’t know. He got called back to New York pretty quick, but he left his number…”

“You should call him.” Ivan said, because it was true. Arthur needed to socialise more, even if it was with stupid over-Americanised heroes.

“I don’t know Ivan. I probably shouldn’t.”

“He left you his number. He wants you to call him.”

“You know why I can’t, Ivan, he’s—“

“I’m not suggesting you get married or anything. Just a phone call. But you are going to have to be the one to do this.”

“Why me?”

“Because he gave you his number, not the other way around. And he can’t exactly look you up, so he has no way of contacting you. You should call him.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Really.”

“I’m serious! I’m actually going to think about it.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Right. Well thanks for this. I’ll see you around, Ivan.”

“May we meet soon, my friend.” Arthur hung up after Ivan’s usual farewell, and Ivan spent a few moments simply staring at the phone in his hand.

He talked to Arthur frequently, but it had been ages since he’d actually seen him. It had been ages since he’d seen any nation he wasn’t related too, but with Arthur it really bothered him.

His friendship with the man was odd, but Ivan liked to think that it was the only thing that had formed out of the destruction of his family.

He’d known that his family was falling apart, that the young ones would leave him one by one, and that he would be helpless to do anything but let them slip through his fingers. He’d tried to accept it, he really did, but when Ukraine… Katusha…

His big sister.

When she left, that was the final straw that broke him. His once crowded house was echoing and empty, and Ivan became like a poltergeist. Sometimes he haunted the place in his misery, other times he unleashed his anger on the unsuspecting furniture that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Alfred had laughed at him at the subsequent G8 meeting, and Ivan had felt his heart explode in anger.

When the day had ended and Ivan was considering drinking himself to sleep, there was a nock at the door. But instead of what Ivan expected, which was Alfred there to make fun of him again, he’d opened the door to reveal England, with a bottle of high quality scotch and an understanding look in his eyes.

And Ivan realised that Arthur knew exactly what he was going through, his own misfortune regarding the separation of territories being almost legendary.

They’d spent the night barely getting drunk, and having the most honest conversation Ivan could ever remember having.

In a world where everyone seemed to be an enemy, Ivan had finally found a friend.

.

Tony returned to the tower, only to be accosted by Pepper in the hallway.

“Oh my gosh, Tony! I’m so glad you’re alright.” She grabbed him in a tight hug, and Tony felt all the air get squished out of him.

“Yes. Surprisingly, I come to no harm in a building without a bomb in it,” Tony chocked out. Pepper pulled back to glare at him.

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

“Give you what?”

“You were supposed to be back yesterday.”

“You told me you wanted me to stay for the whole conference!”

“And as soon as I found out what was happening, I wanted you straight back home, Mr. ‘I’m not going to answer my phone because I’ve got better things to do’.”

“Yes, because I actually had things to do, and I was reasonably busy—“

“Guys!” Steve yelled from the end of the hallway. “I could hear you from the elevator. Tony, I need to talk to you.” Tony gave a mock bow to Pepper, who just rolled her eyes, and turned to follow the Captain down the hallway.

“What’s up Capsicle? Natasha said something important had happened.”

“Yeah something happened.” Steve muttered. “And you aren’t going to like it.”

.

“You’re saying Loki escaped,” Tony addressed Thor.

“The magic that was used to pull him from his prison was not his own. Loki could not have done this.”

“So someone else broke him out. Brilliant. Explain to me how that’s any different.”

“We don’t know that whoever pulled him out was his ally,” Romanov said, from the side of the room.

“We are pretty sure he wasn’t,” Thor commented.

“And why,” Tony asked, “Would you think that?”

“Magic leaves traces,” Thor responded. “Unless we are much mistaken, the being that has removed him is Thanos. And if Thanos has managed to capture my brother, then we have bigger problems to worry about.”

“What do you mean bigger problems?” It was Banner this time.

“What little we know of Thanos includes his immense skill in possession. If he were to take over my brother, he could then use him to spread his parasite, which is much stronger than the tool used to take over you, Barton.” Clint gave a noncommittal grunt to let Thor know he heard him.

“What’s the likelihood that poltergeist here could take over your brother?” Tony asked.

“My brother’s defences are strong, but his imprisonment has not left him in his top form. The longer he is there, the more likely it is that Thanos could break his mind.” Tony didn’t bother to say that he though Loki’s mind was already broken. He knew most people in the room were already thinking it.

“What do you want us to do?” Steve asked. Thor looked down at his hands.

“Without access to other realms, it is difficult so say what can be done… But I would ask that you keep a watchful eye. Finding Loki should be the top priority.”

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Natasha commented.

How hard would it be to build a scanner that could transcend realms, Tony wondered. It should be easy enough to build a machine that could transmit a signal from Asgard to be received in Midgard, but spanning multiple realms? And how would you even get such a device there. Was there even a way for energy to travel through realms not using the Bifrost?

“Tony!” The man in question jerked back to attention when Steve shouted his name. “Could you do a basic scan to make sure Loki isn’t anywhere on earth?”

“Uh… yeah. Sure. Right away.” Tony left the room to avoid being questioned further.

.

To the best of Tony’s knowledge, Loki wasn’t anywhere on earth, but it wasn’t as if he had much to go on. The technology that Shield used to scan for magic was crude, but worked, however if Loki wasn’t using magic… there was no way Tony could find him.

He set Jarvis to let him know if there were any disturbances that matched Loki’s pattern, or if he was caught on any security feeds.

The idea of a trans-realm transmitter still appealed to him, but after three possible drafts, Tony determined that there was really nothing he could do from his vantage point. He would need some for of magic to analyse, even seeing the Bifrost would help. But seeing as the only magical being around was Thor, who was returning to Asgard shortly to continue the search for his brother, Tony doubted he would have a chance.

He contemplated possibly trying to see what he could dig up on Arthur, but he realised the man probably liked his privacy, and Tony actually wanted to be liked by him, so he didn’t. He could respect the man and keep his distance.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t constantly monitoring for phone calls from him though.

But seeing as though there wasn’t much going on, he only thing he could do was sit and wait for something to happen.

.

It had been a week. A full week in which Arthur had his head full of That Night but not the strength to act on it. He tried to convince himself that Tony hadn’t meant it. That the last thing Tony wanted was to hear from some one night stand he’d had in Europe. Even if Tony hadn’t been called away it probably wouldn’t have amounted to anything more… or maybe it might have… but no. No. It couldn’t.

But Ivan’s words kept ringing in his ears.

_You should call him._

_He left you his number. He wants you to call him._

_I’m not suggesting you get married or anything. Just a phone call._

He didn’t have to arrange another meeting to meet or anything. Just phone him up and have a chat. It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes.

He’d had the number in his hand and the phone in the other, but he just couldn’t do it.

What if Tony wasn’t the one who picked up the phone? What if some other avenger or some colleague picked up the phone and Arthur had to stutter through asking to speak to a man whom he’d only met once. That might not even want to speak to him.

Or worse, what if the number that Tony gave him wasn’t even his. It could be some horrible prank on him, which Tony would know about and he would be secretly laughing at Arthur’s belief that they could have had some form of connection from the safety of his own home. It didn’t matter that Arthur was in his own home, he would be left alone in the cold, and utterly lost without the possibility that it could have been something.

Maybe it was better not to know.

Then he could still hope.

But Tony was on his mind when he was signing papers, the sound of his voice was echoing through the calls with his boss, and his breath was on Arthur’s neck when he was trying to cook or embroider, or do something productive.

Even his fairy friends noticed, constantly hovering around his side, wondering what had gotten into their Nation. They too offered advice, but it was more on the vague side, as Arthur hadn’t felt the need to constantly inform them of the comings and goings of the humans in his life. The one that got to him most was:

_When the heart seeks, there is something worth finding._

As if the fey could somehow predict that Tony Stark was something worth finding.

He wanted to though. He really really did. But at the end of the day, he just couldn’t. He couldn’t force himself.

And on top of that America wanted him to come to freaking DC for a bloody meeting that Alfred wasn’t supposed to be arranging in the first place.

Stupid bloody Americans.

.

In the two weeks that Tony had absolutely nothing to do, he’d come to one conclusion.

Waiting was fucking boring.

There hadn’t been any crisis large enough for The Avengers to be needed. There hadn’t been any sign of Loki.

He was right about Thor leaving too. He’d stuck around for a grand total of one evening and a quick breakfast the next morning before hopping back on the magical floating rainbow to go back to his family and was probably doing something much more interesting than Tony was.

This was mostly distracting himself.

Because in the silence, in between activities when his hands had nothing to do and his mind no focus, he would get drawn into the memories.

The echoing whispers of a strangled gasp, and sharp laughter in the dark.

There was no use thinking about it, he’d decided. Either the man would contact him or he wouldn’t, and there was absolutely nothing that Tony could do to determine which outcome was the one that would prevail.

Every day it didn’t happen, it was less likely that it was going to.

Tony didn’t even know what he was hoping for. Whether the other man was interested in a long term relationship, or if the two of them, broken together, had needed that one night of darkness to fix some part of themselves.

All he knew was that he’d met someone fantastic and beautiful and magical, that he wanted to get to know better, but might never see again.

Strangely, the only person who seemed to notice was Bruce.

Well that wasn’t completely true. He was pretty sure that both Pepper and Natasha had noticed the change in his behaviour, but Natasha wasn’t going to mention it, and Pepper had been trying to give him some breathing space, now that they were no longer in a relationship. Emphasis on trying.

Bruce ended up cornering him in his lab as Tony was desperately trying to make an already exceptional generator conserve more energy because he really just needed something to do.

“Hey Tony.”

“Hey big man, what’s up?”

Bruce had just given him a look which told Tony that he knew something was up, but didn’t know what.

“Not much. Just wanted to know what was going on with you.” It was said nonchalantly, but they both could hear the deeper meaning behind his words. Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. There wasn’t really much to say. Nothing much had even happened.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” This was said softer, but with just as much meaning.

“I know,” Tony decided to just go with a half-truth. “I’m just really bored.” Bruce gave a half amused chuckle.

“Well I have a few ideas, if you’re interested in a new project.”

Tony had to hand it to Bruce. The man seemed okay to accept what he knew must not have been the full truth, and instead of getting mad at Tony for lying, he simply gave Tony what he needed in the first place.

Bruce’s best idea, which Tony had to admit was brilliant because he would be stumped for quite a while, was to try and design a teleportation system. They spent several hours working through theories and drafts in which Tony was brilliantly distracted, and thankful enough that he almost wanted to give Bruce a hug.

Their work was interrupted when Clint yelled that Steve had made dinner and it was ready twenty minutes ago.

They abandoned the half made projects, Jarvis would keep and eye on them, and wandered back to where the kitchen was, but just before exiting the lab, Bruce put his hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“If you ever need someone to talk to, I’ll be here.”

Bruce wandered off to go find the food, but Tony found himself rooted to the spot and distracted for a completely different reason.

Holy mother of god, he’d actually managed to make a friend.

.

Three weeks. Three full weeks, and the only productive thing Arthur had done was give in to Alfred’s constant nagging and agree to fly in for the stupid not supposed to be happening meeting.

He’d pretty much given up on calling Tony now.

If there was some point in which it was acceptable to call, Arthur was pretty sure he had missed it.

If he called now, Tony might not even recognise him.

This was accompanied by the crushing knowledge that there was something that he’d wanted, and could easily have gotten, but allowed his weakness to persuade him out of it, and now it was too late.

He’d really wanted to, but now he was absolutely and entirely out of time, and he had no one to blame but himself.

He felt like one of those zombies Alfred was always going on about. Dragging himself out of bed and walking around like he was almost dead, unable to survive the day without the copious amounts of caffeine contained in the tea he drank every morning.

Arthur groaned and let his head smack against the kitchen table.

His own cowardice had gotten him into this mess.

He always hated when France was right.

.

Three weeks and four days, not that Tony was counting.

Nope, he definitely wasn’t.

What he was doing was over analysing things, wondering what he could have done differently. Could anything have been done differently to get the outcome he desired? Clearly the night had not meant as much to Arthur as it did to him.

Tony was once again sitting around in his lab attempting to be productive, and sort of succeeding, when Jarvis interrupted his thoughts.

“Incoming phone call, Sir.” Tony felt a brief spark of hope, before he deliberately crushed it. No way in hell was Arthur going to call now.

“I’ll take it,” Tony said, and waited for Jarvis to connect him.

“Stark here.”

“Tony?” Tony felt his heart drop into his feet because this was finally finally finally—

“Arthur.”

“Hey,” The man’s breathing was ragged. “I’m sorry for this but… I just didn’t have anyone else to call.” He sounded pained.

“Are you okay?” Tony asked. His throat was dry.

“Well, I’m not physically harmed but… not really no.” Tony felt anger burn in his chest. Arthur was crying. Arthur was crying, and calling him, a man he had only met once, because he had no one else to turn to. He wanted to bash whoever had done this to his precious blonde over the head with a chair, and then repulsor his ass to a desert and leave them there to rot.

“Jarvis, where is he?”

“A phone booth in Washington DC, Sir,” The AI responded immediately. Tony considered the odds.

“Arthur, stay right where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings uh... Alfred is not exactly the nicest person in this story.
> 
> Just if you wanted a heads up.

“England? Raise kids? Are you serious? The man couldn’t raise a cat never mind a real person. I’d bet you twenty dollars that a grizzly bear could raise kids better than he could.”

As much as Arthur tried to ignore Alfred’s boisterous voice echoing around the informal meeting room, he found he just couldn’t.

The preamble to this was simple enough.

Given that this meeting was more informal than others had been, Italy brought a curious issue to the table. He knew that the Nations couldn’t have kids themselves, but was wondering if they could be allowed to adopt. This quickly moved from being a serious conversation, to a joking one hypothesizing what kind of parents the various Nations would be.

Arthur had been about to make a derogatory comment about France being a terrible parent because he was a pervert, when Alfred butted in. His comment, though said in a joking tone, managed to freeze the words in Arthur’s mouth, accompanied with a sweeping wave of sadness and anger.

Arthur had made eye contact with a pained looking Ivan, and a surprisingly concerned France, before he stood, abandoning his briefcase, jacket, and phone in favour of leaving conference room.

“Artie? Where you goin’?” America called.

“Don’t mind me,” Arthur responded, his voice hoarse. “There’s just something I forgot to do. Please continue without me.”

“Smooth, Alfred,” France commented sarcastically, once Arthur was out of earshot.

“What did I do?” Alfred responded?

.

Arthur stormed from the conference room, blinking and trying to keep his vision clear. It wasn’t even that what Alfred had said bothered him that much; he’d never really considered adopting kids at all it was just…

God the man was such an insensitive asshole sometimes.

Arthur tried to like him. He really really did. But with the pigheaded way he acted most times, how was Arthur not supposed to wish that he was a small little colony again who was so much easier to deal with.

And Arthur new the tension between them was a problem that could be solved, but Alfred was seemingly oblivious to the fact that anything he said could possibly hurt anyone’s feelings because he was the “almighty hero”.

His attitude had only gotten worse when the Avengers arrived.

Sometimes Arthur wished that he didn’t even know him.

With a jolt, Arthur looked up and realised that he was standing around in some unfamiliar city, with no idea where he was.

Being lost was bad enough, but even worse, he was lost alone. Arthur let out a chocked sob at the thought of being stranded all alone in an unfamiliar city when he so desperately wanted…

Usually he would call Ivan in these kinds of situations, but the Russian was no doubt trapped in the meeting some way or another and Germany would not take lightly to the important talks being interrupted again, especially by the Englishman’s shenanigans.

Was there anything else he could do?

Well, he could call Him….

Might as well. It wasn’t as if this day could get any worse.

Arthur wandered off in search of a payphone.

.

Tony approached from the river when Arthur caught sight of him, with the wind blowing through his hair, ripped jeans and a grease stained t-shirt.

He was fucking gorgeous.

Just for a moment Arthur somehow managed to forget how shitty his day was and what an utter ridiculous twat he was for calling a fucking billionaire to come from god knows where because he needed a hug.

In that moment, Tony almost seemed as self conscious as he was.

Then the moment was over and Arthur felt more ashamed than ever. He was such a stupid idiot. He turned his gaze to the ground and listened as Tony’s slow footsteps approached. There was a moment of silence as Tony stopped, and then a rustle as the man knelt down in front of him.

“Hey,” Tony’s voice was soft, and Arthur had to stop a tremble from going through his body because that was the voice that had haunted his dreams, “Are you okay?” Tony’s warm hands tentatively reached for one of Arthur’s own, and the Englishman had to force himself to look at the man in front of him.

As soon as he did, he wished he hadn’t.

Tony’s chocolate brown eyes were swimming with emotion, and Arthur felt he couldn’t look in them because of what he might see.

And then it occurred to him that Tony had asked him a question, and Arthur had been sitting silently for a minute like a complete idiot.

Was he okay?

“I…” Arthur tested his voice out. It was wavering, but strong enough. “I don’t really know.” It wasn’t as if he could tell Tony the full story but…

But he wanted to.

Tony moved slowly, getting up off the grass to sit on the bench next to Arthur.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said quickly. He had to get this out. “I probably shouldn’t have called you.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Tony commented. “It wasn’t like I was going anything important at the time.” Arthur twisted his head to look at Tony, but the man was gazing off into the distance, and seemed to be completely honest.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tony asked quietly. Arthur let out a long breath.

“It was just something that someone who used to be my friend said.” Arthur was silent for a moment, but when Tony said nothing he continued. “It wasn’t even his fault really, he’s just an oblivious idiot that doesn’t realise some of the things he says might hurt the people around him.”

That was the truth, but it sounded differently when Arthur said it like that. Great. Now Tony would think that he was some weak fool that broke down crying whenever anyone said something slightly mean to him.

“He used to be your friend?” Tony asked.

“He was…” How honest did Arthur want to be with this? Usually he would some up with some bullshit story, but he didn’t want to lie to Tony. And at the same time, Alfred…

He didn’t want to give Tony the wrong impression about what Alfred meant to him.

“He was like a brother to me. We had a falling out a while back. It wasn’t the best time for me, and I may not have acted entirely the way I should of, but he wanted nothing to do with me, and started a huge fight just to prove it, and said some things he probably shouldn’t of. I would be willing to forgive him but…”

“But?” Tony asked.

“Alfred refuses to acknowledge that even a part of the blame for our falling out falls to him. He won’t apologise for anything because of his stupid overinflated ego, after all he’s right one hundred percent of the time, and it happened so far back that I should just ‘get over it’ and he shouldn’t have to do anything to regain my trust.”

“Ouch,” Tony muttered.

“I used to really like him. Now I look at him and wish I didn’t know him.”

Arthur felt Tony shift closer to him, and his arm slowly sneak around his waist, and Arthur realised that he was suddenly freezing. The autumn wind was sharper than he thought. Arthur leaned into the strong man beside him, and was suddenly immensely glad that it was Tony he was with, rather than Ivan. Sure he didn’t know Tony very well but…

Actually the fact that he didn’t know Tony very well almost made it easier.

Sure this may be one of the rare moments where he revealed a more vulnerable side of himself, but because he was doing so to an almost stranger, it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like Tony was going to brag to the other countries that he’d found England’s weak spot.

“I don’t really see him that often,” Arthur commented, “So it doesn’t really bother me that much, but I’ve never really had that many friends…” Arthur trailed off awkwardly.

“Well,” Tony hesitated, “Now you have me. And I don’t just mean that as a friend, though that would be nice, but I’d also be cool with being more. Not that I want to impose anything on you or anything! But…”

Arthur laughed at how suddenly flustered Tony became, the sound freeing him from the dark mood that he’d been in for the last few weeks.

“It’s okay.” Arthur said. “I get it. I think its best if we let whatever this is grow naturally into whatever it’s going to be. But no matter what, I will be your friend.” Tony let out a long breath.

“Right. Okay. I can work with that.”

Arthur had a soft smile on his face as he curled closer to Tony, feeling his arm slowly sneak around to a more intimate grip, as he finally felt satisfied with where they stood with each other.

This could be okay, Arthur reckoned.

This would be okay.

.

Tony received a very strange look from Natasha when he wandered back in to the tower later that evening, but was extremely grateful when she returned to her book, rather than getting up to speak to him.

Though if she was giving him weird looks, Tony supposed that someone at some point would storm into whatever location he happened to be in and ask probing questions, though it was a tossup whether it would be Bruce or Pepper. Not that Bruce would ask probing questions but…

Resolving to entirely ignore the possibilities of being interrupted, Tony headed to the elevator, and then to his personal lab.

How soon was too soon to text someone anyways?

Did it even matter?

More importantly, did he even have anything mildly intelligent he wanted to say to Arthur? And if he waited until he had something really brilliant that he really wanted to say, and who knows how long it would take before he had the confidence to do that, would Arthur think he was blowing him off?

Maybe he should send Arthur a text anyways, just to let him know he was still there.

Was it acceptable to use a winkey face at this point in a relationship? Did normal, social people who worked nine to five jobs use emoticons, or was that just a teenager thing?

Tony groaned, and dropped his head in his hands.

Here he was, having flown halfway across a country just to hang out with a guy he’d met only once, and he was worrying about whether to use an emoticon in a text message.

What was he doing?

“Are you okay?” It was Bruce who had come to ask about what he’d done with his day. This was reasonably okay, because Tony wasn’t sure exactly what he’d do if Pepper wandered into the rom.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine. What’s up, big guy?”

“Steve said he saw you leaving in a rush earlier. Did something happen that the Avengers should know about?”

Oh. That was the question he was asking. Not some horrible probing into Tony’s personal life, but actual concern that there might be some kind of situation.

“No. It wasn’t anything like that.”

“Good. Now I have no cause to be worried.” It is meant to be reassurance, but Bruce’s tone tells Tony that even if he believed there wasn’t some huge world ending crisis, he’d still be worried. Tony isn’t sure if he’s touched, or annoyed.

“Yeah,” Tony manages to croak out, “Everything’s fine.” And Bruce gives him a curious look that makes Tony feel like shit because he’s lying to a guy who’s been nothing but kind to him. And a lot more reasonable than anyone should be around him.

Being the reasonable man that his is, Bruce quickly changes the topic, but somehow that makes him feel worse.

How do people do it on a daily basis? Make connections with real people and have real discussions about problems or emotions.

Tony used to look down on people who let their emotions be exposed. It was always better if you could keep them buried away, where no one could see them and no one could hurt you. But Tony was really freaking out, and actually wanted to let someone in and ask for advice for once.

But he didn’t know how.

That was a skill he’d never learned, and though logically it shouldn’t be too hard, any words he might have said to Bruce died in his mouth.

God, he missed Pepper.

.

Arthur, Ivan noted, was practically glowing when he returned to the hotel. It was just past dark when the Brit had stumbled back, and while Ivan had been panicking about the man being gone so long with no way to contact him, it was clear the time alone had done him some good.

Although the dreamy expression on his face would suggest that he wasn’t quite alone…

Most of the countries had retired for the night, after Germany determined that there was no way to make the group of them stay focused after Arthur stormed out, so there were only a few who recognised Arthur as he strolled through the bar, but Ivan was worried that a wrong word from any one of them might send Arthur into a rage again.

But Arthur took Antonio’s drunken call of “The mighty conquistador returns,” in stride, so everything was fine. Ivan fell into step beside Arthur as they wandered towards the room they were sharing.

“So, how was Tony…” Ivan began the conversation once they were out of earshot of everyone they knew. Arthur sighed, heavily.

“I can never hide anything from you, can I?”

“Nope.” Ivan let the cheer from being right colour his voice. Arthur just glared at him.

“How did you know I was with him anyway?”

“Oh come on, did you see the look on your face. I know a love struck Arthur when I see one.”

“What do you mean I was – I am not love struck!” Ivan had to laugh at his friend’s sudden outburst.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“I’ve liked other people before,” Arthur grumbled.

“But only one of them lives in America.” Arthur stopped for a moment.

“Huh. I guess you’re right.”

“I still want you to answer the first question though. How was Tony?”

“Tony was… good.” Arthur’s eyes clouded up with wistfulness, and Ivan felt a surge of gratefulness that Arthur had found a friend he trusted, as well as a feeling of panic, because he had absolutely no idea how trustworthy Tony Stark was. Still, if Arthur had managed to open up to him this much in the few times they’d met… maybe them hanging out was a good thing.

“Did you guys do anything interesting?”

“No. Well, we just sat around on a park bench and talked. It was actually really nice.” Ivan mirrored Arthurs smile, and then turned to unlock the door to their room.

“Can I meet him?”

“Well, I- uh… there isn’t that much time between now and when we’re leaving and he’s probably busy—“

“I don’t mean now. Just at some point, can I meet him?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

.

After everything that happened, the last thing Bruce wanted to be was worried about Tony.

The man had done everything in his power to make sure that Bruce felt like part of the group, regardless of the Other Guy, and Bruce really respected him. He wanted to trust that if Tony had a problem he would know how to deal with it, and if he wanted to talk to him, he would come and talk. And if he didn’t want to talk, that was okay too.

But he almost couldn’t help it.

Tony looked stressed. The man who wouldn’t sleep for seventy two hours and could go an entire day on nothing but a ham and cheese sandwich usually looked fine, but today he was stressed.

Tony had said it wasn’t something the Avengers had to worry about, and Bruce believed him. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a problem though.

It hadn’t escaped his knowledge that Tony tended to be… self destructive.

If Tony had a problem, would he seek help from an outside source? Did he trust his teammates enough?

Bruce really wanted to believe the answer to those questions was yes, but he had the sneaking suspicion that it was no.

.

Loki relaxed his arms and attempted to concentrate on his breathing.

In. Out. In. Out.

As long as he wasn’t focused on the cuts on his arms, his broken ankle, or the invading force trying to bash its way into his mind, he would be fine.

In. Out. In. Out.

A twitch to the left and one of the cuts on his arm made contact with the freezing floor he’d been thrown on, and his entire body spammed with pain.

Loki’s breath came out jagged, but he didn’t dare make a sound. Even if it was agony, he didn’t want to anger Thanos again.

In. Out. In. Out.

It was different this time.

Thanos was different this time.

Loki was sure numerous of the guys servants would argue if he ever dared to voice his opinion, but Thanos was in his mind.

Loki remembered the grip of Thanos’ mind very distinctly.

This was not Thanos. Oh Thanos was definitely present, but he was almost entirely controlled by something else. Someone else.

There was someone out there strong enough to make the lord of one of the seven lands of the dead their personal puppet.

That thought scared Loki.

He’d kept Thanos from over running his minds defences before, but he had no idea how long he’d last against this stronger opponent, especially if whoever it was had done such a quick and easy job of taking over Thanos’ mind.

Already Loki was feeling pained and helpless.

A part of him wanted to believe that if he just gave in to Thanos’ advances then the pain would go away. Maybe he could survive, despite someone forcibly taking over his body, and glean some information about whoever was controlling Thanos.

But he was so terrified.

Loki was a magician who worked in illusions, and a lie smith who worked with words. Beyond the basics, he had no idea how possession worked.

He didn’t know what would happen to him if someone did truly take over his mind.

He might lose what little sense of self he had left. He’d have someone else’s thoughts running through his head, and though he might be a person, he wouldn’t be Loki anymore.

He was terrified.

It didn’t matter how much pain he was in.

He would lower his shields for no man.

He would remain himself, or die trying.

In. Out. In. Out.

If not for himself, he would do it for Thor.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony had spent about three minutes outside of Bruce’s door debating whether or not he wanted to knock. It was really late at night, or early morning if you wanted to look at I that way but it was dark so Tony didn’t, and he didn’t want to disturb the man, but at the same time he wanted to clear up some of the thoughts that had been swirling around through his head for days now, and he was afraid that if he didn’t talk to Bruce now, he would lose his nerve. Sure Tony usually didn’t care if other people were doing things when he needed to talk to them, but Bruce was actually his friend, and he didn’t want to mess anything up…

“If you’re going to stand around all night, you might as well come in,” Bruce’s voice echoed into the hallway. Tony froze for a moments, before hesitantly opening the door to the man’s room. The man in question was sitting in bed, a book in hand, the light in the room providing a sharp contrast to the darkness outside.

“If I was bothering you, I could leave…” Tony hesitated. Bruce’s disapproving frown seemed more menacing over his reading glasses.

“It’s fine.” Bruce absentmindedly put the book aside, and turned his full attention to the other superpower occupying his sleeping space. Tony wasn’t sure if was reassured by that or not. “Was there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about?” Tony hesitated.

“You know what? It’s stupid, and I’m fine and I’ll just get out of your hair—“

“Tony,” Bruce’s sharp voice cut him off halfway to the door. Tony really didn’t want to look, but he forced himself to turn around, only to be met with and expression on Bruce’s face that was half disapproving and half pleading.

Tony sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

“So, yeah I guess there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Alright.”

“So, you know kinda recently I’ve been all tense and everything…”

“Uh, huh.”

“And I randomly disappeared earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve kinda had some thoughts circling around for a while, and I’m not really sure what to do with them—“

“Is this actually going somewhere, or are you just rambling to stall?” Tony gave Bruce an annoyed glare, to which the man could only offer an apologetic smile. The smile only made Tony groan inside, since when did he become so easy to read. But still. Now that he’d gotten Bruce Banner interested, the man was going to find out what was going on sooner or later. Goddamit. Tony really hated resigning to telling the truth.

“Alright. So, I met someone.”

.

“I met someone.” Those had to be the last words Bruce would have expected from Tony’s mouth. Okay, maybe not the last words, but it was still completely unexpected. Did Tony understand how vague of a term ‘someone’ was? Someone could be anyone. A woman who claimed she was pregnant with his child, a mass murderer whom he’d been threatened by, a really nice lady at a coffee shop that Tony wanted to get to know better, ‘Someone’ could be anyone.

“Good someone, bad someone, give me some context here.”

“Like, a really cute someone.” Oh dear god, was Tony blushing? Was the genius billionaire philanthropist playboy extraordinaire actually blushing?

“Is that all your giving me?” Bruce asked with a dry tone. “Cute?”

“Shuddup,” Tony whined, sounding very close to a toddler. “It’s hard to talk about this, Goddamit.”

“Okay fine. Fine. Get through it in your own time. What does this someone look like?”

“He’s blonde, British, has horrendous eyebrows, but his eyes are the most beautiful shade of green…” Bruce watched in fascination as Tony’s eyes glazed over, reciting the picture in his mind, as the man fell over backwards onto the bed, awkwardness vanishing as quick as it appeared. “His hands are small and adorable, and his hair is so fluffy it constantly looks like he’s just rolled out of bed. And his accent is unnaturally sexy, I mean given that he’s British it’s bound to be sexy, but Arthur’s is unnaturally so, and he’s kind and sarcastic and funny and witty and a really good kisser…”

Bruce’s breaths caught in his throat. Someone indeed. He let a small smile spread across his face, at the thought of the man collapsed in front of him finally going out into the world, and relating to people. Tony did not have enough friends as it was.

“I’m scared, Bruce.”

“Of what?”

“I think I might be falling for him.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Bruce asked hesitatingly.

“Of course it’s a bad thing! It’s terrible!” Bruce frowned. Something was going on here. Something weird.

“Why?”

“Because…” Tony hesitated, running a hand through his hair in a poor attempt to calm down. “I’m shit, Bruce.”

“What?!”

“I’m completely and utterly incapable of maintaining a relationship, I’m terrible at expressing feelings, and my friends only like me occasionally and put up with me the rest of the time… I may be great with machines, but when personal relationships come around, I’m domed to destroy everything I touch.”

“Tony…”

“I don’t wanna fuck this up Bruce! I really really really like him. I don’t wanna fuck up what we have, but I have no idea how. How do you keep a relationship together Bruce? How do you not fuck things up?”

Well, shit. This was so many kinds of wrong. He’d had no idea that Tony’s self esteem was so low. More importantly, the man in question was now crying in his bedroom at three in the morning because he was trying to break out if his shell and get to know people, but couldn’t because he didn’t know how.

“Tony. Tony. I need you to calm down. I need you to breathe, and look at me. Look at me, Tony. Please.” Tony made a valiant effort at trying to slow his breathing, but there were sill tears pouring down his face. Bruce moved Tony off the bed and onto the floor so he could look at the man straight in the face.

“Tony… What on earth happened to ever convince you that you were shit?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, Tony, it really does! Please. Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t matter how many times the Captain apologises, I’m not a hero, I’m a consultant for shield and they don’t want me they just want the suit. And I don’t care what Fury says about my father, that man never loved me anyways, I will always be a disappointment. I’m not good enough for any of you! Pepper left, and that doesn’t really matter because it wasn’t working out, but it still burns, and—“

“Tony,” Bruce growled out, and the man across from him shut his mouth, but his eyes were still reflecting the growing agony that was swirling within. “Whoever told you those things needs to be smacked in the face.” Tony looked extremely shocked when Bruce’s hands moved over no man’s land to come in contact with the engineers.

“Tony, look at me. You are an amazing person. I don’t care what anyone else says, I am your friend, and I do not ‘put up’ with you most of the time. You are an enigma, a bundle of energy that, no matter what Fury might say, is entirely essential to this team. If you ever dare to say you aren’t a part of it, I swear the Other Guy is going to some out and smack you for even thinking so. Pepper left behind something really precious when she left, and that’s entirely her loss, but if this Arthur guy likes you as much as you like him, then he’ll be lucky to have you.”

“Bruce… You can’t be saying that. You can’t think of me like that.”

“And why the hell not?!” Bruce yelled. “Why do the fucked up expectations of stupid people get to determine my opinion of you?”

“But it’s not other people’s opinions of me. It’s my opinion of myself.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” Tony’s mouth dropped open, and in a different circumstance Bruce would have revelled in seeing the man well and truly shocked. Bruce sighs and runs a hand through his hair. As much as he wished otherwise Tony’s self esteem issues could not be fixed in one night.

“Tony… This is how you keep relationships together.” It takes Tony a little while to switch conversation topics, but when he makes the connection he gives Bruce an odd look.

“Breaking down at three in the morning keeps relationships together?”

“No… Well, sometimes, I guess. I mean, being honest. Opening up and showing people that another side of you exists. Expressing your feelings to the best of your ability.”

“You… really mean that?”

“Tony, if you are friends with someone, and don’t know how to relate to them, tell them. And if they are worth your time, they’ll work with you through it, and if they aren’t worth your time they’ll ignore you, in which case you can just cut them out of your damn life.”

“You make it sound so easy. I’m not sure if I can do that.”

“How would you know if you haven’t even tried yet? There may be things you cannot do, but I’ve never heard of Tony Stark passing up a challenge without at least giving an attempt.”

“But what if that attempt isn’t good enough?”

“Then the attempt isn’t good enough. And then you try again.”

“Oh. Okay.” Tony stands slowly, and wanders over to the door.

“Thank you, Bruce.”

“For what?”

“For listening to me.”

“Tony…” Bruce lets a bit of a warning tone slip into his voice. The man tenses.

“Relax. Be honest. Be yourself. Enjoy yourself. Anyone who doesn’t like you after that frankly isn’t worth your time.”

“Thank you,” Tony whispers again, though Bruce has the feeling it’s for something completely different that what he’d meant before. Then he’s slipping out into the dark, around the corner and up the stairs, back to his workshop or an actual bed, Bruce doesn’t know, but knowing Tony either activity will be calming to him after his rather stunning moment of honesty.

Bruce takes a moment to feel honoured that Tony trusted him enough to let his guard down.

He then sighs and runs a hand through his hair, before following Tony’s exit, but this time heading down a few flights of stairs.

There is a light on in Steve’s living room, which Bruce enters slowly.

Clint appeared to be up to his elbows in what was once paperwork but now doodles, Natasha about sixteen pages further into her book than when Bruce last saw her, and Steve appeared to have been pacing for the better part of an hour.

“Well?” Natasha broke the awkward silence. “How did it go?”

“Guys,” Bruce began, “We have a problem.”

.

**Tony: Hey** **J**

**Arthur: Hi. What’s up?** **J**

**Tony: Absolutely nooooooooothing. It’s really really boring.**

**Arthur: I’m very sorry to hear that.**

**Tony: No you aren’t.**

**Arthur: I’m really not. It’s nice to hear from you.**

**Tony: Awesome. What’s going on over there across the Atlantic?**

**Arthur: My boss is glaring at me for texting in a supposedly important meeting.**

**Tony: I’d feel bad, but I hate meetings. Why supposedly?**

**Arthur: I cannot possibly believe you’d feel any sort of regret interrupting a meeting. And he’s talking about technicalities of a mutually beneficial thingy that has something to do with a unit in France. I couldn’t care less.**

**Tony: Weeeeeell you’d be right about meetings. Also, do you usually rebel this much against your boss? Cause that’s kinda hot.**

**Arthur: Eh… I happen to have better things to do than pay attention to stupid meetings.**

**Tony: Plotting world domination anytime soon?**

**Arthur: Nope.**

**Tony: Well what else could possibly be worth your time?**

**Arthur: Texting you.**

**Tony: ....kjhgrsihogh**

**Arthur: What?**

**Tony: Seriously Arthur, stop giving me feelings! I don’t know what to do with them! Tony Stark is supposed to heartless. HEARTLESS!!!**

**Arthur: Dammit you! Now my boss is mad at me for laughing in a meeting.**

**Tony: Are you laughing at my pain?**

**Arthur: No. Welll…. No. Maybe.**

**Tony: You are so mean.**

**Arthur: If you were here, I’d give you a hug.**

**Tony: … How long does it take to fly to England?**

**Arthur: TONY!!! Gah, you utter wanker, just because you are a billionaire does not mean you should just fly across an ocean on a whim!**

**Tony: It’s not on a whim. I want that hug.**

**Arthur: You’re insufferable.**

**Tony: I make that my daily goal in life.**

**Tony: So does this mean I can come over.**

**Arthur: No.**

**Tony: awww. Please?**

**Arthur: Fine! Just come up with a reason that makes sense, okay?**

**Tony: Woot!!!**

**Arthur: Hey Tony…**

**Tony: Huh?**

**Arthur: Isn’t it four in the morning where you are?**

**Tony: 4:37. Why?**

**Arthur: Shouldn’t you be sleeping?**

**Tony: Hah. Sleep is for the weak.**

**Arthur: I’m being serious.**

**Tony: So am I.**

**Arthur: Tony, sleep is important.**

**Tony: I had other things to do.**

**Arthur: Like?**

**Tony: Like freaking out. And texting you.**

**Arthur: … dammit. I can’t laugh at your pain anymore. Now I know what that feels like.**

**Tony: I’m not sure whether to feel triumphant or touched.**

**Arthur: Both. You deserve both.**

**Tony: Cool. I can go with this.**

**Arthur: Tony…. If you are actually serious about flying across the Atlantic, there are some things you need to do.**

**Tony: Can we not do this? Please?**

**Arthur: NUMBER ONE: Inform anyone and everyone who might panic at discovering you absence where you are going, and why you are going there.**

**Arthur: NUMBER TWO: You will give all, and I mean ALL of said people mentioned above a reliable way to contact, and will answer their messages if they so desire to get in contact with you.**

**Arthur: NUMBER THREE: You must have had at least six hours of sleep within eight hours of your departure.**

**Tony: Arthuuuuuur, I operate on completely different hours, that much sleep is going to kill me….**

**Arthur: Six hours, Tony.**

**Tony: But…**

**Arthur: Six. Hours.**

**Tony: Fiiiiiiiiiine.**

.

“He said what?” Steve is outraged, and understandably so. If Bruce didn’t have the Other Guy to worry about he would probably be a lot more worked up about this. Speaking of the Other Guy, the man in question has been suspiciously absent from Bruce’s frame of reference for the better part of the hour. Bruce would be confused, but he knows that the Hulk likes Tony. Tony’s current problems were better solved by Bruce than by the Hulk, so clearly his alter ego stepped down for a bit, in order to let Bruce tackle the issue.

Huh. That was new.

“Tony Stark said what?” Bruce ran a hand through his hair slowly. He was forever going to be the middle man between Tony and the rest of the group wasn’t he?

“He said exactly what I just said. Except with more profanity.”

“Shit.” Clint looked like someone who’d just watched a kitten get run over. “Shit!” No one seems remotely concerned that Clint’s childish response to anger involved shoving a huge swatch of papers onto the floor. Bruce made eye contact with Natasha from across the room, and for once he could see everything he needed to know in her face.

She already knew how bad Stark was. She just didn’t want to believe it.

“I need to talk to him.” Steve walked towards the door, but Bruce grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

“Steve, listen to me. The last thing Tony needs now is an intervention, with the addition being that if he finds out I told you what he told me, he will effectively not trust me anymore. And if he doesn’t trust me, he won’t trust anyone.” Steve looked unhappy about this, but wasn’t making any more attempts to leave, so Bruce let him be for the moment.

“Shit.” Clint said again. “I knew he was bad, but I didn’t know he was this bad.”

“So what do we do now?” Natasha’s voice was soft, but it immediately captured the attention of the three other people in the room. Bruce sighed again.

“We continue doing exactly what we were doing before.”

“You want us to what?” Steve yelled, turning his anger on Bruce again. “To leave Tony alone, to be the victim of the demons in his mind? What sort of a friend are you?”

“But he won’t be alone.” Clint says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“With every day we stay here,” Bruce kept his voice steady, “We add weight to the part of his mind that wants to believe that he has friends. With every friendly gesture, interesting conversation we have reinforces the idea that we are a team. The more we trust him, the more he is going to be convinced that we ourselves are trustworthy.”

“We can certainly talk to him,” Natasha began, “but he has to be the one to motivate the conversation.”

“Why?” Steve asked.

“Because Tony will only be willing to let himself be changed if he actually wants to be changed.” Clint responded.

“Okay,” Steve said, after a while. “We wait, and we try to show him that we’ll be here if he needs us, and we stand ready to act if a crisis arises.” The entire room nods to confirm the unofficial orders from their official, to everyone but Steve, leader.

“He may be alone with the demons of his mind, but we will not let him fight those demons alone,” Natasha whispered.

“So,” Clint says, after a moment of awkward silence. “Where did Tony run off to a few days ago?”

“As that secret is not a threat to his wellbeing whatsoever, I have absolutely no inclination of sharing it with you.”

“So you do know where he went!” Clint pointed and amused, but accusing finger. Bruce held his hands up in mock surrender.

“I only know what Tony told me. Which wasn’t much given that our conversation topic was understandably derailed.”

“Oh, you’re no help at all,” Clint muttered, before wandering down the hallway in the general direction of his room, followed swiftly by Natasha. Bruce made to leave, after all he was in Steve’s living space, but the man put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Is Tony really going to be okay?” Steve asked.

“He came to ask me for long term romantic relationship advice, Steve. I think he’s going to be fine.”


	5. Chapter 5

Tony sighed as the plane touched down in Heathrow. He had absolutely no idea why Arthur made him fly publically instead of just taking his private jet, but Pepper had jumped on the idea, meaning that Tony had no choice but to go along with the idea.

Hell, she didn’t even know why Tony wanted to go to London in the first place, but when he’d mentioned the idea, she’d gotten this weird look in her eyes that Tony didn’t quite trust.

Then he’d had several meetings cancelled and was shoved on a plane.

The seats were goddamn uncomfortable, and Tony had a kink in his neck from sleeping on the plane. But he had gotten some sleep, which was probably good, given that Arthur was no doubt going to finagle him about jet lag anyways.

Somehow Steve, Bruce, Pepper and Arthur were all conspiring to get him to live a healthy lifestyle, and Arthur hadn’t even met the rest of them.

Damn him for being so goddamn cute.

Still, the trip over was not as bad as it could be. He’d gotten minimal amounts of staring, and hadn’t had any ridiculous fan girls or awkward people asking for autographs. He could only hope that the rest of his time in London would be much of the same.

He met Arthur beside the luggage carousel, the blonde man looking sharp in a well worn brown suit. He looked reasonably distracted, but a small smile appeared on his face at Tony’s approach.

“I hope you didn’t bring too much luggage with you, we have a bit of a long tube ride ahead of us.”

“Nah, I didn’t bring much. What’s the tube?”

“Oh. The underground subway system.”

“Ah. That makes sense. I guess.”

“Sorry. I keep forgetting you aren’t caught up on Briticisms.”

“And how would one catch up on Briticisms?”

“TV. You just watch a lot of British TV.”

“You’re secretly trying to make me marathon Doctor Who, aren’t you?”

“But could you really blame me? It’s a really good show.”

“I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“And one of these days you will watch it. Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“The look you have on your face right now!”

“Right.”

Given how much of a racket they were making, it was lucky that they weren’t attracting more attention from the people around them. Tony brushed it off; after all he didn’t really spend all that much time in airports. How was he supposed to know what consisted for normal and ignorable behaviour within them?

They eventually made their way through the underground, Arthur handing Tony an oyster card, and explaining that its purpose was to make travel move as swiftly as possible. Then there was the small lecture about standing to one side of an escalator, so that people who needed to move fast could walk down. Once in the underground, Tony considered it pretty similar to any other underground he’d visited, not that he did that often.

London was similar to New York in regards to the over abundance of tall buildings and lack of green space, and Tony uses that to comfort him whenever the cars driving on the wrong side of the road start to egg on his consciousness. The walk was only a few blocks away from the subway station, which Tony was grateful for because after spending so long cramped on an airplane, he wanted the freedom of movement without carrying around his heavy bags.

The building where Arthur lived was nice. Not super expensive looking, but Tony wasn’t about to pass by it simply because of that fact.

“So, you have an apartment here or something?” Tony asked.

“In a manner of speaking yes. Though the apartment does take up an entire floor of the building.”

“So you own an entire floor? Nice.”

“I actually had to fight my boss tooth and nail, when he suggested I rent something with more elegance.”

“What’s the point if you are going to be moving around all the time?”

“That was exactly what I said to him. I have an elegant house. In the country, where I stay at when I have nothing better to be doing. London is a semi base, and thus I compromised by getting a nice apartment.”

“Huh.”

They had to use a key to get into the elevator, but once inside the rest of the ride was smooth. The doors opened, and Tony had to pause to take in the space.

Goddamn, Arthur had a nice sense of style.

The layout of the place was entirely post modern, and all the decorations were positively ancient, and those things shouldn’t go together as well as they did, but the entire place looked fantastic, and Tony was impressed. By non-billionaire standards, of course, but impressed none the less.

“Like what you see?” Arthur purred, with just enough innuendo in his voice to make Tony smirk. “Come on, I’ll give you a grand tour.”

.

Tony jerked awake in the spare bedroom by the incessant ringing of his cell phone. If it had been any other circumstance he would have ignored it, but that ringtone was an Avengers ringtone. Not the ‘Avengers Assemble’ ringtone, but the ‘Shit is hitting the fan and Fury wants to get a hold of you’ ringtone.

“Fury,” Tony snaps as a form of greeting when he picks up the phone.

“Stark,” Fury snaps back, and not wasting any time continues, “Activity has been detected in England, and a portal is going to be forming there soon. We can’t give you a more precise location yet, but all the Avengers are getting flown over now, because we can’t afford to waste any time.”

“I’m already in London, so I’ll see what I can scope out, and I’ll have Jarvis send out a suit. How long do we think we have before this portal opens up?”

“Rough estimate is an hour, though we can’t really be sure, the energy is growing fast. Contact us if you get any more information.” The line goes dead, and instead of being frustrated that Fury hung up on him, Tony flicks the button to contact Jarvis, inwardly cursing Pepper and her desire that Tony go to London without his suit. And now look what happened.

“Jarvis,” he barks when it connects, “How fast can you send a suit to my current location.”

“Optimistically Sir, an hour.” Oh that was cutting it to goddamn close.

“Cut it as short as possible, J. We have a potential portal opening up, and I need to be on deck, as the other guys cannot get there as fast as I can.”

“Of course Sir. Please stay where you are currently.” The line goes dead again, and Tony glares at his phone as if it was the source of his frustration. Logically he knows there is nothing more that he can do, but he cannot help but feel useless.

He isn’t a super soldier; he doesn’t have years of martial arts training behind him to aid in his fights. All he has is his brain and his broken body, and all he can do is wait. He doesn’t even have the technology with him that would allow him to pinpoint the location of the portal more accurately.

“Tony? I something going on? I heard voices.” Arthur’s voice is quiet. His hair is rumpled, but his eyes glow, and he doesn’t really look like he just woke up.

“Yeah. Looks like there is going to be some other weird portal thingy opening up somewhere, letting god knows what through.”

“Oh my god. Do you have any idea where?”

“They’ve limited it to somewhere in England. It’s not open yet but they’re getting all the Avengers over here as quickly as goddamn possible, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. One of my suits is flying over here. It’ll get here faster than they do, but it might not be enough.”

“They’re… shit. Oh my god. Is this going to be like last time?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t have any of the tech with me that would allow me to figure it out.”

“Shit,” Arthur whispers again.

.

 They sit side by side on the sofa, the only light in the room coming from the Arc Reactor, which is uncovered and glowing because Tony felt safe in Arthur’s apartment. Arthur’s phone goes of once, twice, three times, and the man ignores it every time. Just when the tension gets to be unbearable, Arthur grabs his hand in a searing grip. Tony responds with equal pressure until Arthur gasps, unmistakeably in pain, and falls over into Tony’s lap.

“Arthur? Arthur! Oh my god, are you okay!”

“Cambridge,” Arthur croaks. “They are coming at Cambridge.”

“Are you sure? How do you know? What’s happening?”

“The portal is opening,” Arthur grunts, “I can feel it.”

“Oh my god,” Tony is panicking inside, a huge portal is opening above a huge concentration of people, and his sort of boyfriend is collapsing on him in some sort of episode. He really shouldn’t prioritise Arthur over the thousands of people affected by the portal, but he also really doesn’t want to leave Arthur alone. A noise not much different from an airplane fills the air, signalling the arrival of the Iron Man suit. Tony looks from the door, back to Arthur, back to the door again.

“I need to go deal with this. Will you be okay here?”

“Go,” Arthur whispers.

“Are you sure? I could call for assistance—“

“Go!” The wail echoes from Arthur’s mouth, and Tony is spinning away, wrenching the door open to Arthur’s tiny balcony, and dropping into the waiting suit.

Once out of sight, Arthur reaches into his pocket grabbing his cell phone, and shoots his boss a quick text.

**Portal opening in Cambridge. Avengers called. Please assist in any way possible.**

He then proceeds to ignore any and all responses he gets, and instead focuses on the feeling of nausea that accompanies the unwilling building of energy within the other aspect of himself, and the accompanying dread that at some point he will have to tell Tony why he knew the exact location of the portal before anyone else did, of risk losing him because of his secrecy.

With a groan, he rolls over and does the only thing he knows will calm him.

He calls Ivan.

.

Jarvis doesn’t question when Tony says to head for Cambridge, and Tony lets the autopilot figure out exactly where that is, while he concentrates on making a call to Fury.

“Stark,” Fury barks, “There is too much interference. We cannot locate the actual portal until it opens, and the team is at least another half hour away.”

“Cambridge. The portal is in Cambridge. Hurry the fuck up, because I don’t want to be dealing with this shit on my own for too long.” Tony hangs up. He doesn’t want to answer Fury’s question of how he knows what he knows. He doesn’t even want Fury to know of Arthur’s existence, much less Tony’s relation with him.

The rest of the short flight drags longer than Tony deems reasonable, and the silence eats him alive.

He arrives in time to see the sky ripped open by the same flaring blue light that was over New York. Tony tenses for a moment, feeling an uncharacteristic wave of horror roll through him. The portal sits open, as numerous people on the ground draw attention, both to the anomaly in the sky, and the man flying above them.

Nothing comes through the portal.

Tony hovers awkwardly for a minute, before circling the area. Local police force are doing their best to get the civilians off the streets, but as there are no explosions or obvious threats, many people in the streets are reluctant to loose the chance to grab photos or videos of the unusual recurrences.

“Iron Man, status report!” the Captain’s voice is sharp in his helmet.

“Yeah the portal’s open,” Tony says, “But I’m reporting squat here.”

“What does that mean?” Clint’s voice is loud.

“It means the portal is open. And that’s it. I’m not seeing any aliens, any weird laser beams, unexplainable energy signals, nothing. It’s just… a random portal over Cambridge.”

“Alright. See if you can get a closer look, but be careful.”

“Rodger that.”

Tony approaches the portal with caution. He isn’t particularly keen on going through another portal any time soon, but he tries to get close enough to see what is on the other side of it.

It’s a black spaceship. Absentmindedly floating on the other side of the portal thingy is a fucking huge black spaceship. He can’t really judge the distance all that well, but if he had to guess, he would say that if you put the hellicarrier beside it, it would look as an egg does in comparison to a horse. Admittedly, the ship is quite far from the portal itself, so Tony thinks he might have some forewarning before something dashed through, but he doesn’t really know.

The rest of the Avengers arrive, and they have just managed to get in to the conversation of what the fuck do they do now, when something changes. The portal glows blue for a moment, and then there is a sharp beam of white light. The light falls on the ground about fifteen feet from where the odd group is standing, and when the light fades, a single figure is standing in the street.

The parts of skin that are visible are a deep midnight blue. The alien appears humanoid, with two arms and legs, and is wearing black armour that looks to be a cross between black leather and obsidian. Tony isn’t even sure if that is possible, but whatever it is sure looks badass. The creature does not have any hair, or a feature recognisable as a nose, but its mouth takes up a good third of its face. Compared to a human, its eyes are further apart and pure white. The creature approaches slowly, with his arms raised. He was holding no weapons.

“Greetings Avengers,” the man says, or at least Tony thinks he is a man. His voice is gravelly, and he puts the emphasis on the wrong syllables, but he is understandable. “Do not be worried, I come in peace” The five of them shift on the ground, and the Captain finally takes a small step forward.

“To what purpose did you come here?” Steve makes no attempt to hide the hostile tone in his voice.

“There is a man whom has killed many of our people, and interfered with the happy lives of hundreds more. He had recently escaped from our containment cells, where he was awaiting punishment, and I am here to inquire if you know of his whereabouts. I believe you know him as… Loki.” There is a sharp intake of breath from Clint, and the other avengers move around uneasily.

“Loki is no ally of ours,” The Captain states eventually. “If he were to arrive here, we would be quick to ensure that he gets the punishment he disserves.”

“Of course.” The sinister smile that crosses the creature’s face makes Tony shudder. “We would expect no less from you. If, however, you do come across him, I implore you to use this.” He places a dark black orb on the ground. “Simply hold it in your hand and say that you’ve found him, and one of our men will be along to collect him.” The creature takes a step back, the bright light appears again, and when it vanishes both the creature and the portal are gone.

The odd dark orb remains on the ground, and Tony slowly approaches it.

“Don’t touch it!” Steve warns.

“Geez, cap. You act like this is the first time we’ve encountered alien shit.” And of course, being the very scientific guy that Tony is, he throws a stick at it. The stick bounces off it harmlessly, and falls on the ground.

“Well, okay,” Clint says. “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.”

Shield carts the odd sphere away, making sure that no human comes in actual contact with the orb, and while a part of Tony is screaming not to let the unknown object out of his sight, the large part of him has become unbelievably concerned for Arthur’s welfare. Now that the not-actually-a-crisis had been successfully averted, Tony’s mind kept snapping back to the look of utter shock that had crossed Arthur’s face.

He would have flown off instantly, but that would risk leading Shield to Arthur’s apartment, which he wasn’t doing under any circumstances.

He was antsy as the Captain recited the events to Fury, and restless when questions were being asked about everything he had seen.

“Stark! Do you have someplace better to be?!” Fury growls, when Tony bouncing on the balls of his feet finally dries up the last of the patience of the other man.

“As a matter of fact: yes. So if we could finish this up as soon as possible, I’ll be on my way.”

Fury makes a sound of annoyance in the back of his throat, though the effect is mostly ruined by his being on the other side of a video screen, but Natasha steps forward.

“I think we’re done here,” she says, and Fury grudgingly acknowledges that as nothing really happened, they don’t really need to stand around talking about it for too long.

“See you back at the tower,” Clint claps him on the shoulder, and then Tony is dropping out of the Quinjet and loops back towards London.

.

Ivan talks him through the weird sensation of having a portal open within him. It’s not as if the portal in itself is disturbing it just… it feels evil. He doesn’t know if it is from the portal itself, or something on the other side of it, but something there yearns to spill blood, to tear flesh, and to rip families apart.

It is the most horrible thing Arthur has felt within himself for a long time.

After the effect of the portal dies down, Ivan talks to him about Tony.

“So, what are you going to say to him?” He asks.

“I dunno,” Arthur mutters, “I was hoping to avoid having this conversation for as long as I possibly could.”

“Da. How about I put it like this… How much do you trust him?”

“I…”

“Are you willing to have our world’s secrets rest on his shoulders?”

“Can’t I just not say anything?”

“Not telling him anything might make more sense, but with that either comes avoiding him for the rest of his life, or having your relationship fall apart because he doesn’t feel like he can trust you, and you don’t trust him.” Ivan doesn’t point out that in that circumstance Tony would be totally justified in that because Arthur totally wouldn’t trust him. Arthur doesn’t want to talk to Tony about any of this shit, because for once in his life he wanted to have a friend outside of his freaking status, but if he had a choice between talking and letting him go…

“I think I’m going to tell him.”

“What?”

“I said: I think I’m going to tell him. And I want you to come over.”

“You trust him?”

“Enough.”

“Alright then. I’ll catch the next flight out.”


	6. Chapter 6

Tony’s landing was quieter than Arthur had expected given that the man flew around in a suit of armor, but he rationalised that the man had to be stealthy sometimes, otherwise he would run into a lot of shit in his particular line of business.

Then suddenly Iron Man was wandering through his living room, and Arthur could not help but stare a little. Sure he knew he was friends with the man who was Iron Man but...

Holy shit. He was friends with Iron Man.

The suit did not move with the same easy grace that Tony did when he was not encumbered, but it allowed movement that Arthur would consider impossible in any sort of armor made of metal. Of which he had spent numerous hours in and admired Tony even more for wearing air restricting metal armor in the age of Kevlar.

Tony shrugged out of the suit, folding it into itself to allow his limbs to escape before collapsing as an exoskeleton on the floor.

“You don’t mind if I leave that here, do you?”

Tony’s eyes were haunted, and while Arthur wanted to offer tactile comfort, he was in awe and Tony looked jarringly exposed, which was something new for Arthur. Dear god, they haven’t even known each other a month and Arthur was planning to reveal himself.

Arthur was so screwed.

He nodded because if he couldn’t let this beautiful man before him put his suit in his house then exactly what kind of whatever-they-are would he be?

What the hell were they anyway?

Tony shifted awkwardly, as if the removal of his incredibly badass and beautiful suit made him nervous.

Tony Stark was standing, nervous, in his living room. Arthur’s eyes were drawn to his hands, held ridged with tense energy, worn beautiful with years of practised use. The few strands of hair that fell over his brow like dark spiders thread, the crinkles just beneath his eyes that moved ever so slightly when he changed his focus...

It was always he little details that got Arthur hooked.

“Are you okay?” Tony asked, finally. The deeper questions, Arthur figured, would come later.

“I... Yes. That wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience to go through, but all things considered, I am okay.” The relief that coursed through Tony dissolved half the tension in the room. Tony collapsed on the sofa, and Arthur was now the nervous one, not sure if he wanted to have The Discussion before or after Ivan arrived, which won’t be for a few hours yet.

Tony flicked on the telly, which was new and modern because his boss said it had to be, and Arthur approached slowly.

“I suppose you want an explanation of what happened.”

“I suppose I do.” Tony responded. “At some point, not knowing is probably going to drive me crazy. But not now. I can’t...” he trails off, leaving it hanging in the air between them. “Just not right now. You don’t mind do you?” The blue glow from the telly casted angular shadows over Tony’s face, making him look like some kind of darkened Angel.

Arthur found that no, he really didn’t mind.

They curled together, there on the sofa, watching reruns of old Sherlock Holmes that was in black and white. The smooth dialogue rolled over them, and Arthur felt Tony relax into him, and slowly the tension from anticipation drains away. Either Tony will accept him, or he won’t. At present, there wasn't anything Arthur can do to change that. Tony’s hand found his hip exerting a warm pressure that Arthur suddenly craved, and Arthur lets his hand drift into Tony’s hair, made ridiculously soft by some mystical product

Then it was not so much watching the show than it was watching Tony. His slow even breaths meant more and more as Arthur slowly drifted closer, and for a while they just stayed there, drinking each other’s air.

Then they were kissing, and Arthur couldn't remember when it started, but he also couldn't remember when they weren’t. He was vaguely aware that Tony tasted of something but his enthusiasm for figuring out exactly what was next to nonexistent because kissing Tony was just so goddamn warm. Here they were, making out on a sofa which Arthur didn't actually consider his, after some bizarre portal opened up, and Arthur was planning on telling his best kept secret to a man he barely knew, and all Arthur felt was warmth.

And suddenly he was terrified, because if this goes wrong then he could lose Tony forever, and he didn’t want to lose him when he only just found him. His kisses became frantic, but something within him delighted when Tony responded with the same desperate energy. Then it was a war of tongue, lips, and teeth, only held at bay when Tony links one of Arthur’s hands within his own. Tony was here now, and Arthur would not be losing him, if he had anything to say about it.

“What happened out there?” Arthur whispered.

“Portal opened.” Tony responded once his eyes focus on Arthur’s face once again. “Some weird blue guy appeared asking us to please keep our eyes open if Loki happened to show up again, and then gave us a huge ass black sphere to contact them with so they can come and arrest him if he makes an appearance.”

“Really?"

“I thought it was a stupid reason too, but the portal is closed, and the sphere wasn’t doing anything shit when I left, so I think we’re fine.

“Bizarre,” Arthur muttered. Tony was yawning, and Arthur suddenly realised that he too was exhausted. Somehow he’d missed that amidst the other details.

“How much sleep did you get?”

“Clearly not enough,” Tony groaned.

“Well you should probably do that then,” Arthur allowed the fond humour he felt to colour his tone.

“I don’t wanna get up,” Tony whined, and it had got to be the cutest thing Arthur had ever seen.

“I never said you had to,” Arthur commented. It took a few long seconds for Tony’s sleep addled brain to catch up, but Arthur watched in awe as the shock spread across his face, soon be slowly replaced by that look of ridiculous fondness that made Arthur melt into a little puddle of goo, which he knew must be mirrored on his own face.

Then Tony was kissing him again, and oh god the things that man did with his tongue, and then they were shifting just a little bit and Arthur felt like purring in satisfaction because he got to feel all of Tony’s warmth like this and use him as a pillow.

Tony was asleep within minutes. Arthur peeked around his barely lit apartment, shifting ever so slightly as to turn the volume of the telly down, but keeps the program running so he can watch the ever flickering shadows along the wall. The building was silent, but Arthur felt like he had to keep watch, because seeing Tony so unguarded is a precious commodity that must not be disturbed by any circumstance.

It was beautiful, and Arthur chose to watch the moment and save what he can, so he had something beautiful to remember if he never had the good fortune of gazing upon this beautiful man again.

.

When Ivan entered the apartment several hours later, he smiled when he found the pair of them. Arthur is proudly curled, like a cat over his prize, and the man he vaguely recognized as Tony Stark looked all too happy to have him there. Ivan slipped into the nearest bedroom and grabbed a spare blanket to drape over the two. They shifted lightly closer together with the added pressure, and Ivan allowed a warm smile to spread over his face.

There were numerous things that could go horribly wrong with this relationship, but there were numerous things that could go horribly right. If Arthur was willing to take those steps, Ivan wasn’t going to stop him.

And he wasn’t about to abandon him if things got a little messy either. If that meant killing an American icon because said icon couldn’t keep his mouth shut...

This might just count as a win-win scenario 

.

Tony awoke in the dark to the smell of something cooking. Arthur was no longer on the sofa, and the tv had been muted. The apartment was dark, as was the sky outside, but there was a soft glow of light from the kitchen which Tony wandered towards. There was an entirely unfamiliar man in the kitchen, working over the stove to make something that looks like some variant of pancakes.

“Er, Hi.” Tony said, unsure of what the correct way to handle the situation was. The man turned around, and a smile lit up his face.

“Ah, you are awake now,” he responded, with a light Russian accent. “Arthur went to shower if you’re wondering, but he’ll be out soon.”

“Okay,” friendly Russian man leaned against the counter and Tony was struck by his physical appearance. The man was tall, not tall as in taller than Tony, which far too many people were, but tall as in ‘my mere presence would be threatening if I wasn’t acting cheerful’ sort of tall. He had bleach blonde hair, so light it was almost white, and no one naturally had that white hair, except maybe albinos, which would make sense given how pale the man’s skin was. But if the man was albino that would mean that his eyes would be red and, Tony checked, they weren't. They were in fact a glorious shade of light purple.

Did people even have eyes that were purple?

“I apologise, I have not yet introduced myself. I am Ivan Braginski,” Ivan held his hand out to initiate a hand shake, which Tony was slightly uncertain about because proportionally Ivan was just a lot bigger than he was, but this wasn't his house, and it was common courtesy so...

“Tony Stark.” Ivan smiled in a way that told Tony introducing himself was pointless, Ivan already knew who he was. His grip was firm and official, someone who’s had to shake a lot of people’s hands in his lifetime; maybe he was one of Arthur’s business associates? Then why would he show up at Arthur’s apartment at... whatever some odd time it was.

He was saved from having to make small talk with whoever-this-was when Arthur wanders back into the room, rubbing a towel through his still damp hair.

“Oh. You’re awake.” And damn, Arthur sounds miffed about that fact. Did he do something wrong? Was the not talking about the thing, which really they should have done because it makes absolutely no sense, shit that was bugging him now, so avoiding it was probably a bad idea. Tony wanted to explode, wanted to start by asking why exactly Friendly Russian Man was standing in the kitchen, but what the hell happened yesterday was a close second. But he didn’t. Not yet. He wanted to see how Arthur handles things.

“I see you’ve met Ivan.” Arthur addressed him, and Ivan nodded before turning back to whatever he was cooking. “He’s...” If Arthur insinuates that he’s been two timing Tony with this other guy, never mind the fact that he and Tony were never actually dating, it’s totally over. Shit. Please don’t be fucking the Russian guy, Arthur.

“Well apart from you he’s pretty much the only person I’d call a friend.” Oh. Tony had no idea what that meant, other than Arthur was really fucking lonely.

“And he’s here because...” Tony tried to make that sound lighter than it felt.

“I asked him to be.” Then he sighed like he held the weight of the world. “I need to tell you something.”

And Tony braced himself for something that would sound reasonable, but would bring him nothing but pain.

.

Arthur watched as Tony’s face went curiously blank, and inwardly winced. He’d already put Tony on the defensive, which wasn’t how he wanted this conversation to go, and wouldn’t it be nice if he could just not say it. If he could come up with some bullshit excuse for what is going on and continue on just being Arthur and Tony? But Tony looked so disapproving, standing there in his kitchen, even though all Arthur could seem to focus on are his eyebrows. They are dark and sharp and somehow perfect, and instantly cut away any stupid lie Arthur might have attempted to throw at them.

Tony had prepared for the worst; he could see it on his face. And what Arthur said now would determine if he stays or loses him. And goddamn it if he is going to lose Tony over a lie.

“I’m not human.” It’s blunt, it’s vague and uninformative, but it’s effective because the shock that crosses Tony’s face was so utterly gorgeous, if only for the fact that it wasn't disgust.

“Uhh, okay. That’s really not what I was expecting when you said that. That’s... huh. Okay.”

“You aren’t freaking out?”

 “I’ve met the God of Thunder remember? If you told me that you were the leader of the cult that sacrificed virgins I’d be concerned—“

“Yeah there are no cults.” Tony had been startled out of the blank mask he wore, and now looked contemplative, rather than blank. Okay. That’s the first hurdle jumped over. Tony was still here. Tony had not stormed out in anger, or collapsed in shock. Arthur took a few slow breaths, trying to convince himself to calm down, and say the rest of what he needed to say.

“So you’re saying you could predict the Cambridge portal because you could sense some sort of psychic energy around it, or something?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes.”

“So, you have extra senses?” Okay, so Tony Stark was not fazed by non human beings. And was now asking pointed questions towards his nature, and do Nations have extra senses? That’s not how he would describe it, but it could be true. 

“There is probably an easier way to explain it,” Arthur said, slow and steady. “I go by Arthur Kirkland, but my official name is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” There is a moment of silence in which Arthur mentally tenses for exactly what Tony’s reaction was going to be. He could feel Ivan stiffen beside him, also waiting for Tony’s reaction. If Tony decided to do something stupid like running to the press, Arthur knew that Ivan would take him down before he had a chance.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“As in the country?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.” Tony moved to sit down at the kitchen table, and Arthur heaved a sigh of relief. He’d been expecting wild accusations or stormy silence not... whatever this was. “So how does that work?”

“What do you mean?” He took the seat across from Tony, watching the way the man’s gorgeous eyes follow him with wonder, and oh god he was so completely screwed.

“Are there more of you countries?”

“We prefer Nations,” Ivan entered the conversation, and Tony looked up like he’d just remembered he was there. Ivan turned the stove off before placing the ridiculously early breakfast on the table. “Compliments of Mother Russia, Da?”

“Huh. Okay. Wow. So are you guy immortal or something?”

“We endure as our countries do,” Arthur explained, “If there is an earthquake or a famine we feel it. It hurts and weakens us, and thus many of our number will do whatever it takes to defend our respective countries.”

“So when a portal opened up on your land, you felt it.”

“Yes. However the reverse is not true.”

“Huh?”

“There have been people who have found out about us,” Ivan spoke slowly, but his voice demanded respect. “Some were terrified and tried to kill us. Some were in awe and worshiped us as gods. And some, the power hungry ones, saw us as a means to an end. They believed that they could make us stronger, and thus the countries would become stronger.  Thus we were beaten and mistreated, denied food and burned, all in the name of glorious empire. Their efforts were futile because what happens to the forms we wear does not affect our true spirit, our heart, our Nation.” That wasn't exactly how Arthur would have phrased it, but he could see Tony slowly processing the information. He didn’t dismiss it, or brush off the mentions of torture like Arthur almost expected him too.

“So,” Tony said after awkward pause, “not all fun and games then.”

“I hope you understand how important it is that you not let anyone else learn this secret.” Ivan sounded harsh, not as harsh as Arthur knows he could be, but Tony did not appear concerned about the sudden change of tone.

“Of course,” he promised instantly, “my lips are sealed. Besides, who could I tell?”

“You work closely with Shield, don’t you?” Arthur wondered out loud.

“Uhm no. I attempt to ignore them, and then they break into my house and force me to build them shit, and then I get pissed off so they threaten to kick me out of The Avengers Initiative, so I grudgingly build their shit. Rinse and repeat.” He chuckled darkly, “I wouldn’t tell them shit if my life depended on it. Your secret is safe with me.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Ivan moved to stand up from the table. He puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder, and Arthur watches Tony pull back a bit. Good. Being entirely relaxed around Ivan can have numerous unintended consequences. “Though know that if you break that promise, they will never find your body.”

“Okay. Nice meeting you too. He always like that?” Tony turned to Arthur.

“Usually. I apologise for him—“

“Nah, it’s cool. I’ve had worse.” Tony grabbed his food, standing and moving back to the sofa. Arthur looked down at his barely touched plate, before deciding that he really didn’t want to eat at present. He dropped down beside Tony who had grabbed a portion of his suit, and was turning it over and over in his hands.

“So?” Tony startled when Arthur spoke.

“What?” he said, as if he wasn’t distracted.

“I’m waiting for the onslaught of personal and invasive questions.”

“Oh. Was I supposed to be doing that?”

“Don’t feel obligated. But if you did have questions, I could answer them.”

“Oh.” Tony twitched for a moment, and Arthur repressed the urge to give the man a hug. He made the choice to tell Tony the truth knowing that he might lose him. He hadn’t lost him yet but there was no telling what sort of intimacy they would have now that Tony knew.

“So... are you involved with politics then?”

“It’s... complicated. In the early days we were warriors, leading huge armies against each other for resources and territory, sometimes having duels to determine treaties. As time progressed we were pulled back from the front lines. We became ambassadors of a sort, welcoming various human leaders, though we had little to no political power ourselves. Still getting a signature of ours was a ritual of sorts, and until recently the Nations had frequent meetings where we would get together and talk about various world issues. Or attempt to at least, after decades of knowing one another we rub raw, and spend most our time bickering of things long irrelevant.”

“What happened?”

“Huh?”

“You said you guys met up, but stopped. What happened?”

“Someone slipped up. Our faces were almost spread across the internet in a huge sensation of conspiracy theories, and our bosses decided we should avoid contact until everything had settled down, and we could ensure there won’t be a repeat.”

“Avoid contact with your entire species?”

“It’s not as hard as you might think. We... we have a hard time relating to each other. Even though we’ve all experienced things no one around us possibly could we have... issues. Take Germany and Italy for example. Before the World Wars, Italy followed Germany around like a lost puppy. It was so obvious that he had a crush on Germany, and all of us were making bets on the sidelines, trying to guess how long it would take the two of them to get together and then... well... Those conflicts were hard on all of us... So much pointless death... WW2 was especially brutal on Germany. He wasn't proud of the things he did but he had to do them because... That’s what we are, as Nations. We serve whoever is in charge whether they were democratically elected, crowned king, or stole the crown by force, we defend our nation however possible, and we do as we’re told.

“It’s really sad watching the two of them now. They’ve done everything they could to repair their friendship but sometimes you catch them. Italy is terrified by Germany now, and Germany copes, but you can tell he absolutely hates himself for it.

“It takes a lot out of you. To walk into a room of people whom you’ve loved, who’ve betrayed you, whom you’ve thought of as mortal enemies, and be kind to all of them. Because even when they sink to their knees pleading to be forgiven for the lives they’ve taken because they— we were forced to, it’s hard not to remember the piles of bodies on the battlefield, the scars of bombs upon once beautiful cities. But we had to because there was no one else. Because it was right. Because if we couldn’t forgive each other for the same crimes we’d committed ourselves, then what would we be?”

Arthur was dimly aware that his voice was trembling, and that Tony had pulled his still shaking body into his arms. The warmth was comforting but did little to distract from the horror of the memories swirling within.

“We aren’t going to do that anymore. We decided. No more fighting for the sake of empire. No more leading armies, no more politics. We’ll just be people who can live their own lives and make their choices independent of the Nation we’re attached to. I mean some of our bosses are pissed, but they don’t have much sway. Eventually we’re going to hide our existence from our very governments, and then we really can just be people.”

Tony stroked his hair slowly, offering non verbal comfort, and Arthur allowed himself to relax into the human against him.

“I’m here, Arthur,” he whispered. “I’m here and so are you and we are just people here together. We’re alive, and we are strong.”

“Could you do it?” Arthur asked, after a while. “If your worst enemy was begging for it, could you forgive them?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said.

“I don’t know.”


	7. Chapter 7

“So,” Ivan said cheerfully over breakfast, “Have you told him about your friends yet?”

Arthur spat his tea all over the table, and Tony looked shocked at the way Ivan stretched ‘friends’ into four syllables.

“No, and I wasn’t planning to,” Arthur muttered.

“Is this something I should be worried about?” Tony wondered.

“It’s nothing!” Arthur snapped.

“It only seems like they’re imaginary because no one else can see them!” Ivan retorted.

“Wait, you actually agree with me?”

Tony sat back in his chair, content to gleam information from a distance and ask questions later.

“Of course. We’ve proven that they actually see things that you haven’t, right?”

“Uhm...”

“Remember that time that I was sick, so you had one of them follow me home to make sure I ate something healthy, and then you called me three hours later complaining that all I’d eaten was popcorn before falling asleep?”

“Oh yeah, that.”

“Well is there any other way to explain it?” Ivan turned to Tony.

“Uh... no?” Tony was reasonably certain that was the answer Ivan wanted to hear.

“Exactly,” Ivan crossed his arms.

“Oh. Well thanks, I guess.”

“Uh, can I have some context?” Tony asked.

“Arthur occasionally sees flying bunnies and faeries. He’s made friends with them, and they help him out sometimes.”

“Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” Arthur muttered.

“But they are actually capable of accurately perceiving the world they see, and communicating it to Arthur to give him an accurate picture of things he’s never seen.”

“Da”

“Huh.”

“That’s your response? Huh?” Arthur yelled.

“Well everything weird, strange, and zany has been thrown at me recently, so if he tells me you have magical familiars that no one else can see, who am I to doubt him?”

“Oh.” Arthur sighed, and then checked the time. “Shit, I need to call my boss. I’ll be back, you guys play nice.” Arthur stood up slowly and left the room.

“When he says boss does he mean—“

“The Prime Minister, yes.”

“Huh.”

“I have a theory about Arthur’s imaginary friends,” Ivan blurted out.

“Really?”

“There is a rumour that we are descendants from the fey.”

“I’m not seeing the connection between those two statements.”

Ivan glared, and Tony shut up.

“No one has given any truth to this rumor but well... Arthur’s actually been to the land of the fey.”

“Really?”

“Yup. It was quite a while back, when the world was younger and while some of us nations can do odd things, none other than him have crossed between worlds. The fey taught him things there and whether we are fey or not might as well be irrelevant, because Arthur had been infused by their magic, which he used. But as the human population got bolder the fey began to retreat and the magic that Arthur had tried to go with it. It is bound to him, but harder to use, and I think he stopped using it long ago.”

“You think his faerie friends are a manifestation of the magical energy he is no longer releasing.”

“Da. It’s just a theory I have, but it explains why no one else can see them, but they still convey the truth.”

“Does magic do that?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know for sure if he really went to another realm, do you?”

“No. But I do know that Arthur was the most feared pirate on the seven seas because he had skills that no one else did.”

“Sorry about that,” Arthur wandered back into the room, “My boss was just being an idiot. You guys didn’t destroy anything while I was gone, did you?”

Ivan and Tony made eye contact, and then slowly shook their heads.

.

Ivan stayed, giving Arthur the perfect excuse to avoid his boss, and there was so much bizarre going on with that topic that Tony figured he’d wait until things were more settled to bring that topic up. Ivan had also brought a pile of work, and mainly locked himself in his room. Technically it was Arthur’s guest bedroom, but Tony got the impression that Ivan always used that room when he was over, and he was over with reasonable frequency, so the two amounted to the same thing.

Tony would have been perfectly happy to collapse on a couch and watch some of the ‘absolutely spectacular British tv shows’ that Arthur had insisted he get around to, but Arthur still seemed to think that Tony was suddenly going to flip out, call the cops, and run around screaming.  So Tony suggested they walk around outside.

The sky was grey and it was cool, and though rain seemed imminent the streets were filled with pedestrians, gaggles of teenagers and people walking dogs intermingling with the sleek suits and sharp dresses of the working class.

They wandered for a bit, Arthur making comments about the buildings or the people, morphing into the most personal tour guide Tony’s ever had. But as they entered a park, Arthur slowed down eventually falling into silence. They ended up sitting under a tree scattered amongst a few hills. Arthur sighed.

“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Tony asked.

“I.. I hadn’t realised it was that obvious.”

“You, Mr. Nationhood, have been off all day. So either tell me what’s going on in that fluffy head of yours, or allow me to distract you, cause it bothers me when I’m not the center of your attention.”

“You little brat,” Arthur muttered.

“Don’t you know it?” Tony winked, and Arthurs heart did this painful little flutter thing which made him want to kiss the man and simultaneously curl up in a small ball and berate himself for being an idiot.

“Tony...”

“That’d be me.”

“You know I’m not human.”

“Uh-huh. Where are you going with this?”

Arthur sucked in a short breath and just decided to get it over with.

“What does that mean for us?”

“Wait... you’re asking if our relationship is going to change because you’re a Nation?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just answer the goddamn question, Tony.”

“No, I don’t want our relationship to change. I don’t care what species you are.”

“And what sort of relationship is that, exactly?”

“Oh geez, you are all for the easy questions today, aren’t you?”

“Tony...”

“I don’t know, okay!”

“How can you not know?!”

“I don’t do relationships!”

“What?” The anger boiling within Arthur was threatening to overspill, and god help Tony if he made one wrong word here—

“I don’t do relationships,” Oh dear god he sounded so small. Why did Tony sound small? “And I don’t mean in a dating sense, I mean at all. As a child I was only ever introduced to people because we had money, and I rarely ever talked to anyone in college because I was so young compared to everyone else. Sure I have a few loyal people now, but one of them is my boss and none of them gave me a template as how friendship is supposed to work...”

“Is that what we are to you? Friends?” Arthur spits.

“We aren’t strangers!” Tony snaps.

“And we sure as hell weren’t dating,” Arthur finishes.

“Is that what you want?”

Arthur just sighs.

“Look, I’m not good with people. I can’t magically know what’s going on in your head even if you wanted me to. And I’m oblivious enough that I probably wouldn’t have noticed you dropping subtle hints. If you want something from me, or have a problem with our relationship, you are gonna have to say it to my face.”

“I like you, Tony. But I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to date you.”

It was Tony’s’ turn to sigh, and Arthur felt the weight of the air increase with every passing breath.

“Did I do something?” Tony’s voice was very very hard, and his face was steeling itself into something Arthur was sure was a long practiced mask.

“I barely know you, Tony—“

“We can change that.”

“We could. But we won’t.”

“Arthur, what are you—“

“Enough! I’m tired Tony. I just want to go home. And you should too.”

“Okay, but we can talk about this—“

“Back to America, Tony.”

Arthur’s stood. He strode away, unable to face the agony of the conversation.

“Arthur!” Tony’s warm hands encircled his, and that single touch almost brought all his walls down. “I’ll leave if that’s what you want me to do, but please just tell me: why are you doing this? What makes you act this way?”

Arthur didn’t turn to face him, but he owed Tony the truth.

“Fear. I’m afraid, okay? I’m immortal, Tony. What happens to me if I become attached to you? What happens to me if I become attached to you and then **loose** you? I’ve been alive for centuries, it’s probably better that I don’t intervene with the lives of those who will have children, age and die while I still look as I always have.”

“I think that’s stupid.” Tony said, after a while. “Do you still want me to leave?”

“Yes.” A moment of silence, and then Tony let go of his hand, and brushed passed him, heading out of the park.

“I could take you to the airport,” Arthur croaked after him, desperate.

“Don’t bother,” Tony sounded horrifyingly blank, “I can make my own way home.”

Arthur can’t manage to convince himself that he did the right thing, even though the fear that had been clawing through his throat was burning so much he just had to make it stop and there wasn’t any other way to...

But Tony just looked so fucking...

.

The fly back over the Atlantic was uneventful. Granted, flying over the Atlantic usually was, so Tony usually looked at blueprints or made important phone calls, but right now his head was too full to even consider doing anything but replay old dialogue, and deny calls from Pepper.

He thought things had been going so well and...

No, he was going to respect Arthur’s decision and act like a mature and responsible adult. He had not, in fact, taken much time to consider how his and Arthur’s relationship would progress given Arthur’s quasi-immortal state, but once laid out the argument made a huge amount of sense. No wonder Arthur didn’t have many friends, seeing everyone around you slowly age and die over and over and over...

Tony didn’t have any right to judge the way Arthur led his life.

He could be fine with this, fine with distance. Fine with just being friends, if that’s what Arthur wanted, or dropping out of existence if Arthur wanted him gone.

He could be a mature person when he felt like it.

It just hurt so goddamn much.

He just wanted to stay, wanted to wait until Arthur got back and fight for the right to stay in his life but then... What if his death really did hurt Arthur? What if, by forcing his way into his life he ended up hurting him more than by staying out of it? If Arthur wanted him gone then...

Ivan had been surprised to see Tony storm back without Arthur.

“Did something happen?” He asked.

“Talk to him about it,” Tony had snapped. He’d grabbed his suit and wandered off to the balcony, ready to take off, not wanting to spend any more time in the bizarre halls of memories.

“Tony!” Ivan had called, and he spared a single glance as the Russian walked out onto the balcony. “Whatever Arthur said just... give it time. He may change his mind.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Then Tony was up and off, and Ivan was staring after him with a peculiar expression on his face.

But he didn’t care about that, wouldn’t care about that. All he had to do was keep flying in a straight line and try to cut off that bit of himself that had been opening up and reaching out.

When he returned to the tower Pepper was standing there with a disapproving look on her face.

“Tony, I’ve been trying to contact you for hours, there is a Shield contract I wanted to go over with you, and the least you could do was return one of my phone calls...”

Tony let the suit disassemble around him, and Pepper trailed off when she saw his face.

“Tony? Did something happen?”

“I...” Tony faltered in the face of the woman he once loved. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. But promise me you won’t get horrendously drunk and do something reckless.”

“Okay. You said something about a Shield contract?”

“It can wait.”

“Oh.”

“Get some sleep, Tony. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“Yeah that, that actually sounds like a really good idea.”

“Alright. And if you need anything—“

“I know, Pep. I know.”

Pepper left with a sad smile, and Tony rubbed a hand over his face. He felt exhausted, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to sleep while still thinking of... nope nope nope, no sleep for him, but he needed something to keep the horrifying agony out of his mind, so he stumbled down into his workshop. He was mostly on auto pilot, flicking through blueprints, trying to find something, anything, to grab his attention, and ended up staring at a single line of code, flipping it backwards and forwards, knowing that there was something wrong with it, but having no idea what.

Bruce tapped on the glass entrance to his workspace. Tony jerked away from his spiraling thoughts when Jarvis opened the door, but he was glad for the company.

“You’re back earlier than expected,” Bruce smiled, but lost the cheer in his voice. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

Tony groaned, “Everything’s so fucked up, Bruce.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I can’t.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t mean in an ‘emotionally scarred I can’t bear to think of it’ kind of way, I mean it in an ‘I know confidential information that risks huge consequences if I talk about it’ kind of way.”

“Oh.”

“And no, I’m not going to be risking anyone’s personal health, including my own, by not talking, it’s... a protection thing.” Tony finished lamely.

“Arthur isn’t human, is he?”

“How’d you work that out?”

Bruce gave him a raised eyebrow, which said that Tony’s words gave him the final proof. Tony groaned.

“Hey, I’ve never even met the man, what good does it do to know that there is someone non human out there and know nothing else about him?”

Tony groaned again, but this time there was a hint of laughter in his voice.

“So is the reason you’re being all secluded and miserable a non human related thing? Or something else?”

“Well it’s not really a... well it is but... ugh the two of them are sort of tangled together.”

“Ahh. So it’s complicated.”

“Yup.”

“You think you’re gonna see him again?”

“Geez, I don’t even... I would hope so, but at this point I really don’t know.”

“You know you’re not alone, right?”

“Yes. I’ve got you and I’ve got Pepper, and the other Avengers are floating around there somewhere, and I’m sure there are other people out there that I could get to know if I really wanted to, right?”

“Right.” Bruce nodded and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, before turning his attention to the holographic code still hovering in mid air.

“So,” he said, “What are we working on?”

And Tony grinned because for once he was being automatically included in someone’s plans that didn’t involve fancy dinners, and took a step back to explain.

.

Arthur was numb as he trudged back to his apartment.

Every instinct within him was screaming, screaming to go back and change everything he just said, screaming to run from the acceptance he thought he could never achieve that he just fucking broke, screaming from the guilt, screaming from the longing and the fear that was still coursing through his veins, just screaming.

He couldn’t take it back.

He’d hurt Tony and there was absolutely no way to undo the pain he’d caused and it was probably better that way because Arthur had always been careless and hurt the people around him. The people that he loved...

Oh shit.

He’d been hoping that Tony had actually left to go back to America rather than sitting around in his apartment waiting for him to get back, but when Ivan confirmed it, all Arthur felt was a crushing disappointment and he had absolutely no reason to be.

He didn’t deserve to miss Tony when he’d just...

Ivan is prepared with a blanket and a cup of mildly decent tea he hadn’t drunk while Tony was around, and he sat beside Arthur as the pervasive numbness slowly sunk into his core.

“Arthur,” Ivan’s voice was soft, “what happened?”

“I...” Arthur’s voice broke. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t drag himself through this.

“I take it Tony won’t be coming around anymore?” Ivan whispered.

“He won’t,” Arthur confirmed with a frozen voice.

“That’s too bad,” Ivan murmured, “I rather liked him. For an American, that is.”

“So did I,” Arthur responded, and dear god it hadn’t even been a day and they are already referring to Tony in the past tense.

“So why’d you make him go?”

“Its... Ivan I was afraid. I was just so fucking terrified and I didn’t know how to, and now he’s not here and—“

“You’re telling me,” Ivan pulled Arthur so he could face him, “that you let a brilliant mind like Tony Stark go because you were afraid.”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t want to end up like France.”

Ivan sighed, but Arthur can see the resignation spread across his face. There is no good response to that, as that fear is a definite possibility and there is nothing that Ivan could say to reassure Arthur that it wouldn’t happen. Ivan couldn’t even guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.

And though it was easy for numerous nations to dismiss what happened after the death of Joan of Arc, Arthur had been there, up close and personal for the entire thing, and it was one of the most agonising experiences he’d ever had the misfortune of suffering through.

If he wound up like that...

Well France was lucky that back then Arthur actually had a semblance of magic and could restrain him and prevent the death of numerous innocents.

There is no one like that in this day and age.

If Arthur lost control, there would be no one to stop him.


	8. Chapter 8

It had been three days and Tony was fine.

The breakup, well it wasn’t really a breakup because they were never actually dating, but the sort-of-breakup was over and done with and there was absolutely nothing Tony could do about it.

And as long as he kept occupied and did different things he was totally fine. Absolutely 100% okay.

Sure he’d probably have a huge explosion if he slowed down and allowed himself to think about things, but for now there was glorious caffeine and some paperwork from Pepper to analyse and dissect and put back together ten times stronger than it was before.

Tony was on a mission to give Pepper the absolute best contracts he possibly could, and it might have been a stupid idea but it at least gave him something to do when Bruce insisted on being given time to sleep.

.

Tony hit the week mark still going strong (except for those few times where he collapsed from exhaustion, but that was totally normal) and even though Bruce was attempting to wean him off lab time, there were so many other things he could be doing.

Like pissing off Cap.

And sparring with Natasha.

Admittedly neither of those things were good for him long term, as one could never survive Natasha without several bruises, and it certainly did nothing for Steve’s regard of him... but it was something! Something tangible as in ‘I have relationships! I can interact with people, see? Here’s the bruises to prove it.’

Dear god how did anyone manage to put up with him?

It wasn’t like he was funny or even likeable, and if he kept on running around and picking fights then all they were gonna do was—

Nope. Nopenopenope not going there, not following that train of thought.

.

It was week two when things exploded.

Clint had seen it coming, Natasha had seen it coming, Bruce had seen it coming, hell even Steve knew that something was going down, and yet when Clint walked into the kitchen to find Tony crying over a jar of peanut butter, he was far more shocked than he really should have been.

“Um Tony? Are you okay?”

“Goway” Tony mumbled.

“Sure, I uh... just let me grab some milk from the fridge and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Clint had to reach awkwardly to grab a glass without bonking the sobbing man, concentrating really hard on not making Tony even more emotional and attempting to remember everything Tasha had ever told him about not poking sleeping dragons.

“Why do people hate me Clint?”

“Huh?”

“I mean its fine really, I’m okay on my own, it’s not like I really expect people stick around but—“

“Whoawhoa whoa calm down man, no one hates you. Well I mean some people hate you, but most of them don’t actually know you, and they’re idiots.”

“Do you hate me?” Tony looked miserable, his eyes puffy and red, and Clint was caught between pity and sympathy, and a tiny bit of disgust that Clint shoved to the back of his mind because Tony was his teammate, damnit.

A ridiculously hormonal, stupidly hyper one, but a teammate none the less.

“No. I don’t hate you Tony.”

“But how could you not? I mean I’m lazy, I shirk meetings, I annoy people cause I can and I’ve been constantly going around looking for  fight, and I can’t even open this fucking jar of peanut butter. Why the fuck do you guys want me around?”

“I dunno. Maybe you’re a genius who’s saved the world a couple times. Maybe we might need your ass if something serious ever goes down.”

“Oh.”

“Seriously, why are you asking me this? If you want a touchy feely conversation go ask Bruce. Or Steve.”

“Huh. Okay. See you around.”

Clint wandered out of the kitchen, casting a concerned glance back at Tony. Sure he could have stayed behind and tried to calm Tony down and untangle whatever snare his mind had gotten him into this time, but Clint was bad with those things anyway and while he liked the man enough, spending so much time one on one with him was... unpleasant.

He sighed and continued on to his room. If Tony didn’t manage to pull his head out of his ass, Clint was going to feel guilty about this.

.

“Arthur.”

“Hey Ivan.”

“How are you?” Ivan’s voice echoed over the phone.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. How are things?”

“My boss is super pissed. In the ‘don’t come in to work for month or two’ sort of way. So I’m taking a vacation of sorts.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s fine. It’s not like I was doing any important work, having me there was really just a formality.”

“You sound okay with this.”

“I do- I mean, I am. Okay with it. I didn’t think I was gonna be but, well, things are in a different perspective now.”

“Ahh. Have you talked to Tony?”

“Nope.”

“Have you thought about talking to him?”

“Yup.”

“Have you made a decision on whether you will or you won’t?”

“Nope.”

“Arthur,” Ivan’s tone was disapproving.

“I know, I know. I just keep thinking in circles. I don’t know what I want.”

“I think you should call him.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you left it off badly. Maybe he thinks you are right and you should only be friends. Maybe he wants to get married to you and adopt children and feels really broken, and maybe he’s really frustrated with you and would rather not see you again. And even if he really doesn’t want to see you again, wouldn’t it at least be best to get some closure?”

“You always make these things seem so damn reasonable.”

“Da!”

“Fine, fine. I’ll call him.”

“Right now?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I’m gonna get on a train in an hour.”

“Oh.”

“I’m staying at my house in the country for a while. You know, the one I actually like?”

“Your boss was really serious then.”

“Yeah. Yeah he was. So I’m going to go there, dust everything off, eat some food and then call him, okay?”

“I suppose that will work.”

“You suppose?”

“If I leave wiggle room, you’re likely to just not do it.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’ve had Tink buzzing around me, begging me to call him for weeks. And she hasn’t even met him.”

“And you ignored her for so long because...?”

“She was doing it in iambic pentameter.”

“Oh.”

“So, how are things with you?”

.

“Do you wanna say anything about what happened?”

They were standing on one of the higher floors of the tower, looking out across the expanse of city, and Tony had to acknowledge Bruce’s good taste. The question was enough to show concern, open enough to allow Tony to choose topics, and vague enough that he could back out if he really wanted too.

“I mean yes, but no. God this whole thing has gotten me so confused.”

“How so?”

Tony scanned Bruce’s face for any signs that he was feigning interest, but there was none, only earnestly hopeful and concerned eyes staring back at him.

“I feel like I should be angry at him for breaking up with me. Which doesn’t even make any sense becausewe were never actually dating.”

“You weren’t? It seemed like you were.”

“We had sex the first time we met, Bruce. And after that well, we hardly knew a thing about each other, so I think we were trying to be friends before actually getting truly serious, but I don’t really know causewe never talked about it.”

“But you are angry."

“Yes! I mean not at him, he had a well rounded argument and was perfectly within his rights to do what he did, and not at myself either be **cause** for once in my life I don’t feel horribly betrayed, but I’m still...” Tony waved his hands in the air, attempting to convey the words that continued to evade him.

“Just because he has a rational argument doesn’t mean you can’t still be mad at him.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. I’m just... disappointed. It was going so well, and things seemed so great and then everything just fell apart. And I’m angry  **cause**  it did, and disappointed  **cause**  there’s nothing I can do about it, and really guilty **cause** I wanna do something about it anyway.”

“So you wanna fix it. That’s good. Why should it make you feel guilty?”

The annoying part, Tony realised, was that even now he felt honour bound to protect everything he could of Arthur’s identity. As trustworthy as Bruce might be he couldn’t just explain who and what Arthur was... “So, say you liked Thor.”

“I do like Thor.”

Tony glared. “As in romantically attracted to.”

“I have no idea where you are going with this, but okay.”

“You like Thor, and Thor likes you, but when you ask him out, he says no. Heartbroken, you demand an explanation and he sits down and patiently tells you that Asgardians live for thousands of years more than humans, and if he were to fall for you it would be but a moment of loving you and then hundreds of your lifetimes mourning your loss. He says he’s flattered by your interest, but asks if you would politely keep your distance and not flirt with him anymore.”

“I think,” Bruce began after a moment, “that if it were me, I’d respect his wishes and keep my distance, but...”

“But?”

“You’re Tony Stark. If you were really in love you wouldn’t let anything like  **a**  petty aging difference get in your way.”

“And what if you respected him too much to ignore his wishes.” Tony kept his eyes solidly glued to the floor, but he can hear Bruce’s wince as he slowly begins to get it.

“Then I guess you’d be at an impasse.”

“Yeah, that’s where I am. A fucking impasse.”

“So you’re just letting him fall out of your life?”

“I don’t want him out of my life! But he’s the one who’d have to live without me when I’m gone, and I have no right to make that decision for him.”

“Ahh, I see. So what was going through your head when... the Clint thing.”

Tony nods slowly, and rubs his fingers over the crease in his forehead. Bruce had to ask, not only as a teammate but also as a friend, just to check in and make sure he was okay, but Tony still wished he just... didn’t.

“It comes and goes in waves. I was disappointed and angry and blaming myself which just threw everything out of whack, but I’ve successfully moved on to stage two. That stage being ‘it’s not my fault, damn you all.”

“Well it’s good that you aren’t beating yourself up anymore.”

“You wanna make me promise to come talk to you when it happens again, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not making any promises. But I can try.”

Tony absolutely detests the idea, but the soft smile that light up Bruce’s face makes it almost worth it.

.

The call came in at precisely three in the afternoon. Tony was standing in the Avengers common room listening to Capsicle and Legolas bicker in the background, and was staring at his phone in a combination of shock, relief and utter horror. He considered letting the call go to voicemail, but then it occurred to him that if he missed this call there might not be another one.

He then booked it out of the room as fast as possible, which probably gained some weird looks, but for this he really just wanted to be alone.

“Hey,” he said into the vast echoes of the phone.

“Hey,” Arthur’s voice echoed back  **to**  him. “How are things?”

“Not all that great to be honest, but I’m coping just fine.”

“Good. That’s... good.”

The silence resonated.

“Look, I wanted to talk,” Arthur began again.

“Which I can totally tell from the lack of it happening!” Tony snapped.

“I wanted to apologise.”

“For what?”

“Regardless of my stance on the issue, that wasn’t how it should have been handled. What I did was mean and cruel and... you deserve better.”

“Damn right I do.”

Tony could hear Arthur wince over the phone, but forced himself not to feel any guilt over it.

“Look I won’t say I’m not mad, cause I totally am, and that isn’t going to change any time soon but, apology accepted.”

“Oh okay. Good.”

“So now comes the million dollar question. What the fuck do you want from our relationship?”

“I...” Arthur sighed. “I’m not happy that I said it, but most of the stuff I said was true. However there’s more to it than that.”

“Lemme guess, commitment issues?”

“That would be a fairly apt description.”

“Yeah alright. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“I’m not asking you to wait around for me,” Arthur blurted out. “I’m trying to work on things but I mean, if you find someone who’s absolutely stunning, don’t let me get in the way of what you want.”

“At this stage I’m not sure I want to promise that. But okay.”

“Okay. So... friends?”

“Friends. And I’m still mad at you, by the way.”

“Figured. Is there anything I can do to ease that along?”

“I dunno. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Tony didn’t want to make that promise either. But the silence on the phone no longer echoed so horribly, and Tony could slowly feel the tiny flutter of hope coming to reside in his chest once again.

“So what’s up with you then?”

“Well I may have been indeterminately fired by my boss...”

Totally worth it.

.

He was supposed to stay in his cell.

Thanos knew this, the Chitauri knew this, Loki knew this, but still he didn’t.

Couldn’t wouldn’t shouldn’t didn’t.

But he was. He was supposed to stay. By every breath and every beat of blood that rushed through his Asgardian veins he was supposed to stay in his cell.

But he wasn’t Asgardian, was he?

So when the firey heat of the branding iron had left his skin he allowed the utter panic of the Ice Beast fill inside him, and even though every warning he had was screaming at him to just stay in his cell where it was  _safe_ , Loki could no more control his own feet than a dog harness a raging stallion.

He ran.

He ranranran spreading ice over the walls and leaving piles of snow in the already chilled containment. There were spells seeking after him, pulling him back, but when he dropped the false Aesir skin they fell back, so Loki embraced the ice and kept on running.

They hadn’t been smart enough.

There was a field they had erected to stop him from his pulling his magic into a more active form, but it only extended so far. Loki sighed in relief when once again he called, and green  **flame**  flickered over his now blue palm.

There were guards between Loki and where he wanted to go. They perished horribly, caught between the horror of Loki’s natural wrath and the scorching flames of his birthright as a mage.

He would only have one shot at this. One desperate attempt.

The device that allowed Thanos to open small portals was already pointed towards Midgard, which Loki supposed he should be grateful for, because at least there were people there who knew him and with whom he could bargain.

It was a desperate fool’s errand.

There wasn’t enough time to set up the machine properly, so Loki was flying blind. He would land somewhere within Earth’s atmosphere, probably above a land mass, and that was just going to have to be good enough, as he could already hear the armies amassing to rip him from his last escape attempt and pull him back to his infuriating cell.

The portal opened, and there was this instant. This one perfect instant.

Loki dived headfirst into the unknown, leaving a wake of magic behind to wreak havoc and prevent all chances of his being immediately followed.

He recalled falling for a while, not a long time cause that was the void, and everything here was so much whiter, but a while.

It was very cold.

That should be concerning, but Loki’s skin was still blue which meant it was okay for it to be cold.

It couldn’t harm him here.

Loki landed in a snowdrift, and drifted into a peaceful slumber in the temporary safe haven that he had finally been granted.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of now, were all caught up with FFN, so this fic will now update like mine usually do.
> 
> aka rather slowly.

Arthur stared at the phone in his hand. What had he just done? He’d... he’d said he’d be working on things, hadn’t he. That wasn’t what he wanted to say at all, he hadn’t wanted to give Tony any sort of false hope, there was no hope for them but... but it occurred to him and then he couldn’t not say it. It was stupid and a terrible idea and he shouldn’t want it, but he wanted it anyway so he said... he said....

And he’d meant it, Arthur realised.

He had no idea what working on things might actually entail, but if Tony told him there was something he could do to make him less angry then... well he’d do it. The list of things he would do for Tony was growing, and the list of things he wouldn’t was becoming painfully short.

Despite Arthur’s best attempt at ripping them apart, Tony had gotten under his skin.

And the only thing more terrifying than that thought was that Arthur couldn’t picture it being any other way.

.

“Nick Fury is paging the Avengers.”

“Alright, pull him up,” Tony waved at the nearby holographic wall, “let’s hear what he wants.”

“Stark,” Fury greeted, when he saw that Tony was alone, “There’s been more portal activity, much closer to Loki’s signature this time.”

“We have a location?” Tony asked.

“It was just a short burst, so we didn’t have time to pinpoint an exact location, but we have a general area. I want you scanning with whatever tech you have and you all suited up ASAP.”

“Right. Did anything come through this time?”

“Not positive, but quite likely.”

“Alright J, let’s get this show on the road.

.

“Why did this asshole have to choose the north pole of all fucking places to open a freaking portal,” Clint muttered.

“It’s not exactly the north pole,” Bruce pointed out, “It’s at least—“

“You would not believe how much I don’t care how far off it is. It hella cold and fucking miserable, alright.”

“Who pissed in your cheerios?” Tony muttered.

“Stark!” Clint growled.

“Can we keep it down?” Steve called from the front of the quinjet. “We do actually have a job out here. Stark, we’re at the edge of the Shield coordinates, what can you give us.”

“The epicentre is definitely more north than this, but not by much. An educated guess would put it further east too, but Shield really did not give me much to work with.”

“Scanners picking up anything?”

“Nothing but ice and snow, Cap.” Natasha called from the pilot’s chair.

“Right. Looks like we’ll have to do this manually. Bruce, Clint, Natasha, we’re going out on foot, opposite directions try to cover as much ground as possible. Tony, Thor, you’re in the air try to spiral outwards. Keep in radio contact, we don’t want to lose anyone else out here, okay?”

“Alright. We got this.”

.

Tony blasted over another pile of ice which looked just like all the other piles of ice he’d recently flown over. God there was nothing out here. Jarvis was scanning everything he could, but things had completely calmed down after whatever sort of activity had occurred here.

He shot Thor a cheerful wave as the Asgardian was kicking down a suspicious looking pile of snow to reveal even more nothingness.

Natasha was moving with power, climbing up ice piles to get a better vantage point, while Steve seemed to be avoiding them, not that Tony blamed him, and told Tony to get back to work when he lingered for too long. Bruce shot him a dirty look when Tony laughed at his ridiculous over layered faux fur monstrosity he and shield agreed was actual winter wear and Clint... Clint actually seemed to have found something.

Tony landed beside him to find him staring at a blue figure half buried in a snow bank. At his signal Tony cut their contact to the rest of the Avengers.

“Clint?” Tony asked, curiously. His friends eyes were completely glued to the unmoving possibly dead alien in the snow.

“Doesn’t he look like Loki to you?” Clint’s voice seemed very far away.

“His skin is blue—“

“But if you re-coloured him.”

Tony was prepared to scoff entirely, but then the figure shifted and... Clint was right. It was an exact duplicate of Loki, painted in different colours.

The figure shifted slowly, as if waking from a restful nap, before catching sight of the two of them, shooting backwards in surprise and revealing numerous off coloured scorch marks and several cuts oozing dark purple blood.

“Please don’t shoot me, I mean you no harm, I swear I was only trying to get away, I promise I won’t do anything like last time, just please don’t let me go back to them—“

“Loki?” Tony asked. The blue figure nodded.

“Why are you here?” Clint’s voice was dark.

“I swear I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, it just hurt so much and I just needed to get away, please don’t send me back to them, please don’t let them take me, I promise I won’t do anything to you ever again just please don’t let him take me.”

“Do you swear to cause no harm while you’re here?!” Clint roared advancing on Loki.

“I swear I swear! I’ll do anything, just please don’t send me back to him.”

“I don’t know who He is,” Tony said, “But we need to alert Shield.”

“No!” Clint snapped, as Loki collapsed again in the snow, and Tony took a cautious step backwards.

“Clint buddy, are you feeling okay?”

“You haven’t heard what Shield plans to do to him once they have him!”

“But why be merciful to him at all!?”

“You don’t know what it was like!” Clint screamed. “I was in his head Tony. I was in his head. And he wasn’t alone. There’s something else out there, something huge and evil and it was always watching. Watching and judging and correcting and correcting actions when Loki wasn’t doing it right.”

“Jesus...”

“You can’t tell shield alright. You can’t!”

“Alright but... what do we do with him then. Someone has to watch him to make sure he doesn’t get up to anything.”

“He can’t stay in America, Tony, shield’s grip is to strong there, and they’ll find him and then... He has to go somewhere else.”

“And you don’t have any brilliant ideas?”

“Uhm...”

“Alright. Lemme call someone. It’ll be a long shot getting him to agree to this. And you’ll owe me, big time.”

“Okay.”

“And if he goes nuts and kills more people it’s on you.”

“I know.”

“And you want to do this why? He’s untrustworthy, and any promise he makes screaming his head off can’t be counted on.”

“I know you can’t trust him,” Clint snapped, “and neither can I. But I know him. And it’s a terrible idea, why are you agreeing to this?”

“I may not trust him, but I trust you.”

“Oh. Okay. Awesome. Make that phone call, man.”

.

Arthur stood on his back porch watching a Stark Industries helicopter on his lawn at three in the morning.

It felt perfectly normal to be standing there, drinking tea, even though his mind was still reeling with the ridiculousness of what he was doing. This was such a terrible idea and was nothing at all like what Ivan had meant when he said talk to Tony but Arthur was doing it, for some reason.

He headed out onto the lawn once the chopper blades started to slow. Tony Stark grins at him and flicks the door open and Arthur is suddenly surprised that there is no one in the machine with him.

“No pilot?” he asked.

“Please,” Tony groaned, “As if I would let some random stranger learn where you live.”

Tony was mostly joking, because he’d already done that, not that the alien in the back really cared, but it managed to capture the seriousness of the moment as well.

“Why didn’t you take a suit?”

“This is a stealth mission. Iron Man is many things but stealthy isn’t one of them.”

Arthur smirked inwardly at Tony openly admitting a flaw in his design, but calmed when he entered the helicopter to find the unconscious figure.

His limbs were long and bony, and his skin was blue dusted with grey blue swirls. When Arthur reached to brush a tentative hand over his elbow his skin fades to humanlike pink which slowly spread over his body, while his hair remained matted, black, and covered with dried blood.

With the humanlike colours, he looked malnourished and gorgeous. He reminded Arthur of his kind, maintaining the same image even when crumbling and starving, which meant the few wounds on his skin were probably minor marks compared to what he’d suffered.

“You sure you can handle him?” Tony whispered.

“He can’t kill me, and there’s nothing he can do to hurt me that hasn’t been done before. I’ll be fine.”

“You can have your faerie friends look after him, right?”

Arthur felt like he just got emotional whiplash, pulled from solemn reminiscing to a trembling sense of awe because no one had ever done that before. Sure Ivan believed him when he’d told him about them, but Tony was actually relying on...

“Of course.” His voice trembled, but it was okay. Tony believed him, Tony believed him, _Tony believed him_.

The moment sustained until Arthur realised it was probably awkward, and he moved to pick the alien up.

“Careful,” Tony said, “He’s deceptively heavy.”

And he was. Approximately the same weight as Ivan, and the alien looked about half his size. Arthur actually had to apply the muscles long in disuse to get him smoothly off the floor, but once in his arms it was easy enough to maneuver him.

Tony followed as Arthur placed the alien in the guest room across from his own. He shifted a bit as the covers were pulled over him, but remained unconscious.

“Do you wanna stay the night or...” Arthur trailed off. God this was so awkward. He used to know how to talk to this man.

“Nah, I need to head back, Fury is pissed at me enough as it is. But you’ll call me when he wakes, right?”

“Of course.”

“And if anything goes wrong, I’m just a phone call away.”

“Alright.”

“I don’t expect him to stick around for too long, just enough to recover and then keep moving, but let me know if he says anything, okay.”

“Tony. It’ll be fine. Go do what you need to do so you can come back.”

Arthur felt like he was saying things he might regret later, but it was taking all his concentration to just not stare at Tony’s lips, god that man was unfairly pretty, but he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. They’d broken up for a reason, Goddamnit.

“Yeah, with like seventy arms-full of tech so I can upgrade this old house of yours.”

“I like this house.” Arthur growled.

“I won’t change anything big without your permission,” Tony defended, “And if he decides to stick around for a while I wanna make sure Jarvis can keep an eye on you.”

“Oh.” Well. That was really sweet and should probably be creepy but it somehow just wasn't. “Cool.” Shake it off Arthur, shake it off.

.

Loki woke slowly, only drifting into full awareness when he realised he was no longer on rock solid floor. He lay as still as he could, trying to figure out where he was before he opened his eyes. He’d been in his cell like normal, heat of the fire curling into his skin, but they’d messed up and he had run and—

Cold. It had been so refreshingly cold, cooling the wounds and the anger and... he’d been found. The one he’d dragged down with him and the one in the metal suit had found him. He must be with them then.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a bed. The sheets were smooth, and his filthy body had smeared dirt and crusted blood all over them. The room was plainly furnished, white walls, small brown tables, dark wood trim, and a small window with deep green curtains over it. It was plain given Asgard’s standards, but it was so much more than Loki expected, given that he was a prisoner.

Come to think of it, shouldn’t there be manacles on his arms, a muzzle on his face?

Shouldn’t there be people watching him?

He waited, listening, but there seemed to be no activity now that he was awake. Loki stretched cautiously, as this was probably just a ruse trying to get him to relax. Still, an opportunity was an opportunity, and Loki used it to test out his strength. His legs wobbled but held, and his fingers felt stiff and wouldn’t move quite right, but altogether he hadn’t lost as much upper body strength as he might have. He crossed the room pulling open the curtains revealing blue skies and an open expanse of green grass bordered by trees.

There were slow footsteps down the hallway and then the door opened revealing a short blonde man with piercing green eyes and bushy eyebrows. His clothes indicated the midgardian sense of formality but his body language was relaxed and unafraid as he leaned against the doorframe.

“Ahh, good to see you awake.”

Loki inclined his head in acknowledgement, trying to purse out whom exactly the man was. Was he supposed to be Loki’s jailer? He didn’t seem very intimidating. Or like much of a fighter.

“I’m Arthur Kirkland, a friend of Tony’s.” The man introduced.

“Tony?”

“Iron Man.”

Ahh so that was how it went. The metal man had been convinced to pass him off to a friend rather than informing the authorities of Loki’s presence. He’d regret that.

“and you are?” the stranger let the words hang. Loki raised his eyebrow. Did this fool truly not know? Something must have showed on his face because the man then said, “oh I know what they say about you. But I’d rather not make assumptions and just hear it from you yourself.”

“And you are supposed to be my jailer?” Loki scoffed.

“Nope,” the stranger responded. “This isn’t a jail, you’re free to go wherever you like, though we are in the middle of nowhere so there really isn’t much of anywhere to go. I’m going to make sure you adhere to your promise of not harming anyone during your stay on this planet. But as long as you do that, anything I have is yours to use.”

Oh damnit. In his earlier desperation, he’d made that promise hadn’t he? But he’d have a place to stay and free food as long as he could keep his act together, if this person was being honest.

“And why should I believe you?” Loki questioned. The other man shrugged.

“I personally don’t care if you do or don’t. I’m not doing this for you. But I am being honest, and doubting everything I say because you feel like you have to is only going to create more headaches for you, but whatever floats your boat.”

Loki frowned but nodded. He already liked this man just the tiniest bit because of his proclaimed disinterest in gaining Loki’s trust. Of course he may be lying, but that made things so much easier for Loki.

“Come on, let’s get you some food, and then you can wash the crap out of your hair. And bandage your wounds if you want.”

“If I want?”

The stranger shrugged. “I dunno how aliens heal. Maybe it’s super fast, or promoted by eating protein or rubbing rosemary on it or some shit. I’m assuming you know your limits and you’ll bandage anything you think needs it.”

“Ah.” Well. What a very reasonable assumption.

Loki trailed behind as the stranger lead him up a short hallway and up a few stairs, around a corner into a large room Loki assumed to be his kitchen.

“You can cook stuff if you want. I’ll be doing as little of it as possible cause my cooking sucks, but there’s not much else you can do in the middle of nowhere. You can eat what I make, or you can make your own stuff, but you don’t get to complain about it if you chose the former. Anyways for right now we’re going to stick with something really simple.”

The stranger moved to open the door on a sealed white cupboard and coldness trickled into the air. He removed several items from a smaller box, closing the cold door and placing the round objects in another contraption. He raised an eyebrow at Loki’s undoubtedly confused expression but explained without Loki having to make a fool of himself by asking stupid questions.

“That’s a refrigerator, abbreviated to fridge. It keeps things cold which means they rot slower or don’t rot at all. This is a toaster,” he pointed at the other contraption. “You put things in it approximately this size,” he held up one of the round objects, “push this lever and it heats up, and warming the contents. You only put bread like substances in it though.”

“Ahh. So what are you making?” Loki felt a small shiver of concern as the strangers face lit up.

“Toaster waffles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have any ideas for a human experience you want Loki to have during his extended stay on earth? Lemme know, I'll try to fit them in.


End file.
